A police officer who had played a key role in the Bengal government’s ground combat against Maoist guerrillas in the forests of West Midnapore in 2009 is now Calcutta’s police commissioner.

Manoj Verma, an IPS officer of the 1998 batch, took over as commissioner on Tuesday, replacing Vineet Kumar Goyal.

Verma was the additional director-general of police in charge of the state’s law and order when he was called in to be the city’s top cop.

Sources in the state secretariat said Verma was selected from a list of three senior IPS officers for his image as a no-nonsense, tough police officer.

In Kolkata Police, Verma had earlier served as deputy commissioner in charge of traffic and deputy commissioner of the detective department (II).

Verma had spearheaded Operation Lalgarh against the Maoists in Jungle Mahal as the West Midnapore superintendent of police (2009-2011).

The Rajasthan-born officer is also credited with curbing crime across parts of Barrackpore in the industrial belt of North 24-Parganas as the commissioner of Barrackpore between 2019 and 2022.

Goyal was transferred to the state police’s Special Task Force, where he had served earlier. There, his role in gunning down suspected terrorists holed up in a New Town complex in June 2021 had won him kudos.

While announcing his replacement on Monday night, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said Goyal would be posted to a place he had asked for.

Goyal had to go because striking junior doctors had set his removal as one of their conditions for returning to work. The doctors have struck work since the rape and murder of their colleague at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.

The protesters have accused him of tamperingwith evidence and failing to protect RG Kar from vandals who ransacked sections of the hospital in police presence on the intervening night of August 14 and 15.

Speaking of Verma, a senior official in the state home department on Tuesday said: “The government wanted someone with no controversy around him to take charge of Kolkata Police and instil a sense of confidence among both the personnel and the people at large.”

Verma handed a bouquet to the outgoing commissioner and took his seat at Lalbazar. He did not make any formal statement on Day I.

As the police chief of West Midnapore, he had worked out the strategy to encircle Maoist-dominated areas of the district from two flanks and create a circle of domination in association with S.N. Gupta, the then deputy inspector-general, CID (operations). Several officers who were part of Operation Lalgarh recall Verma as the one who loved his camouflage gear and took his 9mm pistol to bed.

In May 2011, the newly elected Trinamool Congress government had initially put Verma on compulsory waiting but brought him back within a few months to head the Counter Insurgency Force.

In 2017, Verma was posted as the inspector-general of police, Darjeeling, at the height of the unrest in the hills following a movement by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha. Senior police officers said Verma’s tough stance then had helped the Mamata government restore peace around a time the Morcha was allegedly in touch with armed separatists. Several of Verma’s batchmates said the officer fought with a fractured jaw at Sipchu in Darjeeling while facing an offensive from armed Morcha supporters.

“Two years later, in 2019, the state government relied on Verma’s efficiency in tackling law and order in Barrackpore when parts of Jagaddal, Bhatpara and Naihati were racked by violence and tension between communities,” said a senior IPS officer.

Verma was awarded the state government’s police medal in 2017 and the chief minister’s police medal in 2019.

In January, Verma was posted at Nabanna in charge of the state’s law and order in the rank of additional director-general of police ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

On Tuesday, the state government replaced Verma with Jawed Shamim, the new additional director-general of police (law and order).

Besides Goyal, the agitating young doctors had demanded the removal of Kolkata Police’s deputy commissioner (north) Abhishek Gupta. The parents of the 31-year-old junior doctor had alleged that Gupta tried offering them money on the night of August 9 when their daughter’s body reached home.

The state government replaced Gupta with Dipak Sarkar from the Siliguri police commissionerate. Gupta was posted as the commanding officer in charge of the second battalion of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR).