A year after multiple Indian Police Service (IPS) officers were sent to Manipur by different states/Union Territories to head their Special Investigation Teams (SITs) to investigate the violence cases, three states—Punjab, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh—have called back their officers and sent their replacements, reports The Indian Express.
The Supreme Court had appointed former deputy national security adviser (NSA) and former Mumbai Police commissioner Dattatray Padsalgikar to be the “overall monitor” of a CBI probe into the instances of sexual violence in Manipur on August 3 last year. Following the Supreme Court’s directions, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs directed all the states/UTs to nominate their officers for the SITs.
According to IE sources, a discussion to send them back to their cadre started when some of the IPS officers who came on superintendent of police (SP) rank got promoted to deputy inspector general (DIG) in January and requested their police chiefs to call them back. Padsalgikar reportedly suggested a rotation policy for all SIT officers due to the challenging law and order situation in Manipur.
In an order issued on September 6 on behalf of the Manipur DGP, Jayanta Singh, IG (Admin), Manipur Police, said that Madhya Pradesh cadre IPS officers Alok Kumar and Rajeev Kumar Mishra were relieved from their duties as their replacements Ramsharan Prajapati and Sushil Ranjan reported to the office.
Similarly, Haryana recalled Surinder Pal Singh, a 2010-batch IPS officer, and replaced him with Rajender Kumar Meena, a 2011-batch IPS officer. Punjab also called back Shubham Aggarwal, a 2018-batch officer, and replaced him with Aditya S. War, a 2020-batch IPS officer.
Additionally, Madhya Pradesh called back Ashutosh Bagri, an IPS officer of 2015 batch, from the CBI headquarters in Delhi and sent Vaishnav Sharma, a 2012-batch IPS officer, in his place.
The changes aim to address the challenges faced by SIT officers in Manipur, where they are busy with law and order duties. The rotation policy may help ensure a smoother investigation into the violence cases.
