Manoj Kumar Verma named Kolkata Police Commissioner amid uproar over RG Kar rape-murder
Verma replaces Vineet Kumar Goyal, who has been transferred and posted as ADG and IGP, Special Task Force, West Bengal.
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New Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Kumar Verma (R) with outgoing CP Vineet Goyal. (Express photo)In less than 24 hours of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the protesting junior doctors reaching an agreement after a month-long protest over the rape-murder incident at Kolkata’s R G Kar Hospital, the state government on Tuesday afternoon removed Vineet Goyal from the post of Kolkata Police Commissioner.
Goyal, replaced by Manoj Kumar Verma, has been made ADG and IGP of the Special Task Force (STF) of West Bengal.
Manoj Verma was earlier DCP (Traffic) of Kolkata police. He was the police superintendent of West Midnapore when the state government was carrying out a joint operation against Maoists in Jungle Mahal. He led the operation with the Counter Insurgency Force (CIF) in which Maoist leader Kishenji (Koteswar Rao) was killed. When Gorkha Janamukti Morcha, a registered unrecognised political party, went on a 104-day strike in 2017, Verma was sent to Darjeeling, and he was also sent to Barrackpore amid unrest.
During Monday night meeting, the delegation of junior doctors and the CM agreed to remove Vineet Goyal by 4 pm Tuesday. Around 3.30 pm, government announced that Manoj Kumar Verma, known to be a “crisis manager”, would be the new Kolkata Police chief.
DCP (North) of Kolkata Police Abhishek Gupta was also removed from his post and transferred to the 2nd battalion of EFR.
Deputy Commissioner (East) of Siliguri Police Commissionerate Dipak Sarkar was given charge of DCP (North) of Kolkata Police.
In the Monday meeting, it was also decided that Director of Medical Education Kaustav Nayak and Director of Health Services Debashish Haldar would be “removed”. Nayak has now been posted as Director of Institute of Health and Family Welfare, and Halder was posted as OSD of Public Health.
Suparna Dutta, who was Director of the Institute of Health and Family Welfare until now, was also removed. In place of Haldar, Joint DHS Swapan Soren was given the charge of DHS. The new DME is yet to be announced.
Junior doctors had also demanded removal of DCP (Central) Indira Mukherjee. According to sources, the state government has no immediate plan to remove Mukherjee.
After the meeting Monday night, the junior doctors said that though the talks were “positive”, they needed to hold discussions with their colleagues before taking a final call on resuming work.
After their general body meeting, junior doctors welcomed the government’s decision to remove the officers.
The CM had said, “They said they will discuss and decide. I spoke with the CP and took him into confidence, he said he wanted to leave. Regarding the DME and DHS, I have asked the Chief Secretary to do the needful… I ask the people of Bengal not to misunderstand us.”
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