After 22 days, UP gets police chief in O.P. Singh

After a gap of 22 days -- the longest in the history of the Uttar Pradesh Police -- the state got a new Director General of Police (DGP) on Tuesday as O.P. Singh took over the charge in the presence of senior officials of the department.

The 1983-batch IPS officer was relieved by the central government from the post of the Director General (CISF) last week.

Soon after coming from the national capital, Singh met senior Home Department officials and on Tuesday visited the famous Hanuman Setu temple to propitiate the Hindu monkey God before driving to the DGP office at 1, Tilak Marg here.

A new name plate bearing the name of the police chief was quickly put up outside his official residence, adjoining the police headquarters.

His predecessor Sulkhan Singh demitted the office following his retirement and after a three-month extension, on December 31 last year and the post had been lying vacant ever since.

Singh had been named as the new police chief by the Yogi Adityanath government, but he had not been relieved by the Centre, much to the embarrassment of the state government.

While the grapevine blamed the Brahmin lobby in the ruling party as the force behind the delay, there was also speculation that Singh's appointment was being jettisoned as he was very close to former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and was the SSP of Lucknow when the infamous murderous attack on BSP chief and then Chief Minister Mayawati was perpetrated at the VIP Guest House.

However, it was reliably learnt that Chief Minister Adityanath's will prevailed over others and O.P. Singh was relieved from the Centre. He has a two-year-plus tenure left and this could give him an edge in controlling crime, old timers feel.

Singh has been police chief in Almora (undivided UP), Lucknow, Allahabad, Moradabad, Lakhimpur Kheri and Bulandshahr before serving in the state Intelligence Department and the CISF and the NDRF at the Centre.

--IANS

md/nir/bg