Damayanti Sen, Kolkata's former detective chief, will be “in charge” of the post of Kolkata police commissioner for three days from Wednesday because incumbent Soumen Mitra will be on leave.
Sen, a 1996-batch officer of Bengal cadre, is now the special commissioner-II in Lalbazar and the second most senior officer in the city police hierarchy after Mitra.
In a government order on December 17, it has been notified that Kolkata police commissioner Mitra has been granted three days’ Earned Leave from December 22 to 24 “in connection with his visit to Chennai”.
“Smt. Damayanti Sen, IPS, Spl. Commissioner of Police, Kolkata, will remain in charge during absence of Shri Soumen Mitra, IPS,” the order further mentioned.
Mitra is an officer of the rank of additional director general (ADG), next to whom are two special commissioners. As the post of special commissioner-I is lying vacant, Sen, who is special commissioner-II, gets the charge of the top chair when the commissioner goes on leave.
Mitra, a 1988 batch IPS officer and 43rd commissioner of Kolkata police, is scheduled to retire on December 31.
A senior bureaucrat said the choice of Mitra’s successor after he retires will be independent of the existing structure of Kolkata police.
“The choice of the new police commissioner is an extremely sensitive matter and there is no rule to suggest that when the CP retires, the officer next to him or her in seniority will replace him or her...,” the bureaucrat in Nabanna said.
Sen, who is an ADG-ranked officer, had shot to fame during the investigation of the Park Street gang-rape case in 2012. She had been transferred out of the city within two months of the incident and asked to take over as deputy inspector-general (training) in Barrackpore, a comparatively less important assignment.
Later, she was sent to Darjeeling and then to the state CID as deputy inspector-general.
She returned to Kolkata police in 2019 as an additional commissioner after a gap of seven years.
Several senior officers said Mitra going on leave and Sen taking charge as the city police chief during his absence was a “routine administrative move”.
Mitra is likely to resume charge on December 25.
Over 100 Xaverians attend reunion dinner in Kolkata
Xaverians attended the reunion on Tuesday. Bishwarup Dutta
Over 100 Xaverians attended a reunion dinner at their alma mater on Tuesday.
The ‘Reconnect 2021’ dinner for the senior members of Alumnorum Societas (Alsoc), the St Xavier’s School Old Boys’ Association, was held at the Father Bouche Gymnasium of St Xavier’s Collegiate School.
Kolkata police commissioner Soumen Mitra, from the 1979 batch, was the chief guest.
He was felicitated by Father M. Thamacin Arulappan, the principal of the school and the president of Alsoc.