The Bengal government on Wednesday transferred the state’s detective chief to a relatively minor post amid allegations that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has failed to probe several cases.
R. Rajasekaran, who was the additional director-general in charge of the CID, will now supervise police training. His rank remains the same.
The transfer, which officials in the home department said was routine, came within a fortnight of chief minister Mamata Banerjee expressing her intent to overhaul the state’s investigation machinery.
An IPS officer of the 1997 batch, Rajasekaran took over as the head of the CID in May 2022. Three months later, he was among the 11 IPS officers who received the chief minister’s police medal for outstanding service.
The state government did not name Rajasekaran’s successor till the evening.
“An additional director-general will soon be named the head of the CID. Four officers were transferred on Wednesday. These are routine transfers,” a home department official said.
The other three who were transferred are Damayanti Sen, R. Sivakumar and Rajeev Mishra.
Sen, who was additional director-general of police, training, has been shifted to policy. She replaces Sivakumar, who will head the Enforcement Branch. Mishra will be the head of police modernisation and coordination.
Senior officers said the CID is a specialised investigating wing of the state police, similar to the detective department of Kolkata Police but with a much larger area of operation.
“The CID has often faced criticism for what many considered inept handling of cases. Its probe and chargesheet in the Darivit murder case, for instance, did not satisfy the families of the victims. Calcutta High Court entrusted the National Investigation Agency (NIA) with the probe,” said an officer.
Tapas Burman and Rajesh Sarkar, students at Darivit High School in Raiganj, North Dinajpur, were killed in an alleged police firing in September 2018.
The CID also took over the investigation of the violence during a Ram Navamicelebration in Howrah’s Shibpur in March 2023. The high court later ordered the transfer of all cases related to violence during Ram Navami celebrations in the state to the NIA.
“Besides investigating serious offences, the CID is supposed to have a strong intelligence network through its units in each district. The recent cases of arms smuggling suggest the network is far from effective,” the officer said.
During a meeting at Nabanna on November 21, the chief minister had expressed her frustration with the functioning of a section of the police in the “lower level”.
She had told the state’s director-general of police, Rajeev Kumar, that she would overhaul the CID.
The chief minister’s directive came a day after the state home department transferred the detective chief of Kolkata Police, Murli Dhar, to a relatively minor posting. Murli Dhar was the head of the Kolkata Police team probing the rape and murder of a doctor at RG Kar hospital.