Kolkata. Senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Manoj Kumar Verma was on Tuesday appointed as the new Kolkata Police Commissioner in place of Vineet Goel. A day earlier, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a meeting with agitating junior doctors and agreed to their demands to resolve the deadlock that has been going on for over a month over the RG Kar Hospital incident.
Director of Medical Education (DME) Dr Kaustav Nayak and Director of Health Services (DHS) Dr Debashish Haldar have been removed from their posts. This information was given in an order of the Health Department. This order was issued after a meeting between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and agitating junior doctors on Monday night. In the meeting, Mamata had promised to remove Nayak and Haldar from their posts. According to the order of the Health Department, Dr Swapna Soren has been appointed as the new Director-in-Charge of Health Services, while Dr Suparna Dutta will be the Officer on Special Duty (OSD) of Medical Education.
Haldar has been appointed as Special Officer of Public Health in Swasthya Bhawan and Nayak has been appointed as Director of Health and Family Welfare Institute. According to an official notification, Goyal is a 1994 batch IPS officer. He was made Additional Director General of Police (ADG) and Inspector General of Police (IGP) of Special Task Force (STF) of West Bengal Police. 56-year-old Verma, who has been appointed as the new Police Commissioner, is a 1998 batch IPS officer. Earlier, he was handling the responsibility of ADG and IG (Law and Order).
The responsibility of ADG and IG (Law and Order) has now been handed over to 1995 batch IPS officer Javed Shamim. According to officials, any transfer will not be considered as a promotion or demotion. Goyal, an alumnus of both IIT Kharagpur and IIT Kanpur, took over as the city’s top police officer in December 2021, replacing Soumen Mitra.
His successor Verma has served as Barrackpore Police Commissioner and has also been the Superintendent of Police of the anti-insurgency force. He played a key role in the state government’s campaign against Maoists in Jangalmahal and in the killing of Koteswara Rao, commonly known as ‘Kishanji’. Verma was also Additional Director in the Directorate of Security, apart from holding important posts like IGP of Darjeeling and Superintendent of Police (SP) of West Midnapore.
The state government also removed Kolkata Police Deputy Commissioner (North) Abhishek Gupta and replaced him with Deepak Sarkar from Siliguri Police. Gupta has been made the Circle Officer of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) 2nd Battalion. Gupta, like Goyal, is under the scanner in the RG Kar rape-murder case as he had offered money to the parents of the deceased doctor soon after her body was found on August 9. The victim’s parents had alleged that Gupta had wrapped the money in a plastic bag and offered it to them.
Tripurari Atharva, who was the Additional Director General (ADG) and IGP of the State Special Task Force (STF), was appointed as the new Director of the Directorate of Economic Offences. One of the agitating junior doctors said that they have seen the government order and will announce the further strategy after holding their meeting.
He said, “We will have a meeting and then we will decide whether to continue the strike further.” The junior doctors, who have been protesting for the last 39 days against the rape and murder of a trainee doctor, were demanding the removal of the Director of Health Services, Director of Medical Education and Health Secretary for their alleged involvement in corruption in the state’s health sector.