Manoj Verma becomes new Kolkata Police chief

Manoj Kumar Verma, a 1998-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, has been named as the new Commissioner of Kolkata Police.

He replaces Vineet Kumar Goyal, who has been transferred to the Special Task Force (STF) of West Bengal Police as the Additional Director General (ADG).

On Monday night, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee promised the junior doctors, protesting over the ghastly rape and murder of a junior doctor at the R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in the state capital last month, that she will replace Goyal.

Verma held the post of Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) and Jawed Shamim will now be occupying that chair.

As announced by the Chief Minister on Monday, Deputy Commissioner (North Division) of Kolkata Police Abhishek Gupta has also been replaced. Gupta has been transferred as the Commanding Officer of the second battalion of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR). He will be replaced by Dipak Sarkar, who is currently posted as the Deputy Commissioner at the Siliguri Police Commissionerate.

The state government, at the same time, has announced two other reshuffles in the state police. Gyanwant Singh, the Director of the Directorate of Economic Offense, has been transferred to the Intelligence Branch of the state police as the ADG. Singh will be replaced by Tripurari Athrav, the erstwhile ADG (STF).

As per the Chief Minister's promise, erstwhile Director of Medical Education Kaushik Nayak and Director of Health Services Debasish Halder have also been replaced.

While Nayak has been transferred as the Director of the Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Halder’s new position is Officer-on-Special Duty (Public Health) with the Health Department.

Swapan Soren will take over as Director of Health Service (in charge) while Suprana Dutta will be the Officer-on-Special Duty (Medical Education).