The transfer of six UP Police top cops on Friday has brought to the fore the curious cases of erstwhile ADG (Law and Order) Anand Kumar and ADG (Prisons) Chandra Prakash and set the gossip mills rolling within the top echelons of the police system in the state.
Sample this: Erstwhile ADG (Law and Order) Anand Kumar was promoted to DG rank before the recent parliamentary elections but continued on the post for obvious administrative reasons. When finally it came about, Kumar found himself transferred to a post meant for an IG-rank officer as there is no post of ADG or DG (Prison) in UP.
Even more curious and intriguing is the case of ex-ADG (Prison) Chandra Prakash. For him, it is back to the days of Samajwadi Party regime.
Confused? Read on.
After Akhilesh Yadav became the Chief Minister to head the Samajwadi Party government, most of the Dalit officers were shunted to non-descript posts, which has been symbolic with regimes of caste-based parties.
On these policy lines, Chandra Prakash was bundled off to Rules and Manuals as IG and when his turn came, he was promoted as ADG. He continued with Rules and Manuals for the next five years.
After the Yogi Adityanath government took over in 2017, the officer was shifted as ADG (Crime) in the DGP office.
In March last year, a set of top bureaucrats proposed his candidature as ADG (Prisons) which was shot down by the DGP on the ground that he was “an asset” in the DGP headquarters. However, in June first week last year, the same officers finally managed to get Chandra Prakash shifted as ADG (Prisons).
Rumours abound that the DGP came to know about the transfer list after it was vetted and okayed by the Chief Minister.
Known to be a no-nonsense officer, Chandra Prakash was reported to have been coaxed to smudge crime figures as ADG (Crime) by a very senior officer, which he modestly refused. And his transfer to the Prison department, ostensibly without the DGP’s consent, only drove the wedge wider with the top cop.
Between July and November 2018, subtle tactics were adopted by powers-that-be to sully Chandra Prakash’s image. These antics included
leaking of old videos of inmates partying inside Naini, Ghazipur jails to a section of TV news channels.
But his senior had the last laugh. A year after heading the Prisons department, Chandra Prakash was shunted to Rule and Manuals as ADG, understood to be a punishment posting. Ironically, the officer was away in the national capital for a conference on prison reforms when his transfer was made so that he could not pre-empt his shifting.
Attempts made by this reporter to contact the DGP on phone for his comment failed.