It seems West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is deeply anguished when her political leaders are murdered or a police officer is killed in Bengal. She acts tough and the entire blame falls on the man in charge of the intelligence chiefs of Bengal.
Banerjee handed the transfer order to Additional Director General IB (Intelligence Bureau), Niraj Singh to a much less important post of ADG (administration).
The decision was taken at a crucial time when Holi is about to be celebrated across Bengal and the Muslim festival Sabe Barat is on the offing. Also, 107 municipalities are to be formed, and, the government anticipates violence during the formation of the local bodies.
Chief Secretary H K Dwivedi, two days back, held a meeting with all the SPs and DMs and urged them to control the law and order as sensitive input had been received regarding the communal violence and law and order problem in the state.
Niraj Singh was transferred because he failed to apprise the government of the threat to Anupam Dutta, newly elected councillor of the Panihati municipality, on the outskirts of Kolkata.
Dutta was a leader of the Trinamool Congress in North 24 Parganas.
Last night, when Singh came to know about his transfer, he refused to sign any file, said a source. He has been replaced by Rajiv Mishra, a 1994 batch IPS officer, who had once touched the feet of Mamata Banerjee in East Midnapore when he was Inspector-General there.
Similarly, in 2018, Sanjay Chanda, a 1987 batch IPS officer, was shunted out as IB chief when an MLA of Trinamool Congress, Satyajit Biswas, was murdered in Krishnagunj of Nadia district. Chanda, who is now director-general of Railway Protection Force (RPF) in Delhi, failed to report to the government about the probable threat to Biswas.
The murder case remained unresolved and in fact, CID booked Mukul Roy, then a BJP leader, as a key conspirator in the case. In a twist of fate, Roy is currently with the Trinamool Congress.
Another knee jerk reaction of the chief minister came in 2017 when a police officer, Amitabh Mullick, was killed in Darjeeling. Then ADG (IB), Gangeswar Singh, could not give the government information about the situation. So Banerjee showed him the door within a few days of the murder. Singh, also a 1987 batch officer, later was one of the top contenders to become DG of West Bengal. But he retired on February 28 this year and now is a member of the staff selection commission.
According to a senior police officer, the job of the IB is not to check on murder.
“In fact in our police duties, murder is not an organised crime. One cannot go inside the mind of a person who carries out murder suddenly. How could IB chief be held responsible for that?” asked a senior IPS officer of Bengal.
But that is what style of present chief minister of Bengal, as she always said, “I am little rough and tough.”
