By IANS,
Pune/Nagpur : Under a cloud of enquiry for allegedly coercing a private transporter into giving free tickets to the members of his family, Pune police commissioner Jayant Umranikar has been transferred to Mumbai as additional director general of police.
The high profile Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, who has had a 22-year-long overseas stint with different Indian embassies, is being replaced by Nagpur’s commissioner of police Satyapal Singh. His transfer too has come equally suddenly, only 13 months after taking the reins in the state’s second capital.
The two commissioners are among five senior IPS officers whose transfer orders Wednesday surprised the state police circles as they were not a part of a periodic revamp. Few had an inkling of the home ministry’s decision even a day before.
Sources said the decision to transfer Umranikar was taken at a high-level meeting held in Mumbai at the instance of state Water Resources Minister Ajitdada Pawar, who was extremely unhappy with the city police chief’s “inept handling” of the law and order situation, particularly the hooliganism unleashed by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) activists in the city in the last few days.
It was, in fact, because of the insistence of Ajit Pawar, who is the guardian minister of Pune district, that the police detained as many as 71 MNS activists Wednesday evening, the sources maintain.
The minister, who was not available for comment Thursday owing to the ongoing monsoon session of the state legislature in Mumbai, minced no words in telling a local daily Wednesday that he would not allow anarchy to reign in Pune at any cost.
“We cannot remain mute spectators to the violence. I have urged the chief minister and deputy chief minister to hold a meeting on the issue in Mumbai,” Pawar was quoted by the daily as saying.
Principal secretary (home) Chitkala Zutshi told IANS that “it was a routine transfer”.
The transporter, Sanjay Randive, under a state Criminal Investigation Department probe in a fake visa scam, has been in the news since 2006, when he had complained against Umranikar, then heading the CID.
On Thursday, a team of investigators landed in Pune to quiz the city police chief about his alleged role in the case of “free trip to Delhi”, the sources said.
As for Satyapal Singh, an IPS officer from the 1980 batch, the sources cited his “impromptu” role in checking a kind of gambling called ‘matka’ and the “unseemly zeal” he was showing in implementing the compulsion to two-wheeler riders to wear helmets within the Nagpur city limits as reasons for his peremptory transfer.
As per the official orders, additional director general of police (training and special units) Praveen Dixit has been transferred to Nagpur to replace Singh.
Dalbir Bharati, at present on deputation to the Central Reserve Police Force, has been posted in Amravati as the range special inspector general of police in place of S.M. Syed, who has has been asked to take charge of the special cell for prevention of atrocities against women.