A day after the Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta was attacked inside her house during a public hearing, Delhi Police Commissioner SBK Singh has been replaced by 1992 batch AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram, and Union Territories) cadre officer Satish Golcha. The Ministry of Home Affairs issued an order on Thursday. Golcha, who has tenure till April 2027, is known for his no-nonsense approach and his decisive leadership during the 2020 northeast Delhi riots, where he served as the Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order).
He moves to the position of chief of police in the national Capital after serving, most recently, as its Director General (Prisons). He took up that post last year, with the high-profile Tihar Jail, and the Mandoli and Rohini prisons among others, under his supervision.
Golcha’s predecessor, SBK Singh, a 1988-batch officer, had what is likely the shortest tenure as Delhi Police chief, having taken over on August 1 following the retirement of Sanjay Arora. Singh’s brief time in office was marked by several critical law and order incidents, including the recent assault on Gupta and the chain-snatching of a Lok Sabha MP in the high-security Chanakyapuri area on August 4. Beyond his roles in Delhi Police, Golcha is also lauded for his work during his tenure with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), where he investigated high-profile cases like the Ruchika molestation case, the Rizwanur Rahman murder case, and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Golcha was instrumental in dismantling a false narrative orchestrated by Pakistan’s ISI during the 2009 Shopian rape case in South Kashmir.
The case, which was initially framed as a sexual assault, was later found out to be a conspiracy created by separatists in connivance with others at the behest of their handlers across the border.