Rajeev Kumar Appointed West Bengal's New Director General Of Police

Kolkata:

The West Bengal government on Wednesday appointed former Kolkata Police commissioner Rajeev Kumar as the state's new Director General and Inspector General of Police (DG and IGP), an official said.

He will replace Manoj Malviya, who retired during the day but was further appointed as the police advisor for the next three years, he added.

Mr Kumar, who is currently the principal secretary of the Information and Technology Department, will assume charge immediately, he said, quoting an order.

Mr Kumar, a 1989-batch IPS officer of the West Bengal cadre, had earlier served as the additional DGP of the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

The CBI has accused Mr Kumar, who is considered to be very close to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, of allegedly suppressing and destroying evidence in the investigation of the Saradha scam while leading a Special Investigating Team (SIT) set up by the state government to probe the matter.

The Saradha scam came to light in 2013 and several lakh investors, who had invested in Saradha chit fund, were financially devastated. Kumar was then the police commissioner of Bidhannagar.

In 2014, the Supreme Court handed over the investigation of the scam to the CBI.

When a CBI team went to the residence of Mr Kumar, who was then the Kolkata Police commissioner, on February 3, 2019 to question him in connection with chit fund scam cases, not only were they stopped and detained by police, the CM even sat on a dharna accusing the BJP-led Union government of using central agencies against the opposition.

The IPS officer, who is a computer engineer having passed out from IIT-Roorkee, is a master in electronic surveillance with a record of transforming customary methods of crime detection of the Kolkata Police and giving it a modern tweak by incorporating surveillance drones, security cameras and tracking devices. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)