Goa government wants ailing police chief replaced

The Goa government wants the state's Director General of Police (DGP) Kishen Kumar to be transferred out of Goa because he is afflicted with leukemia and is "unable to pay undivided attention to his work".

A letter written by Chief Secretary B. Vijayan to the union home secretary has requested a substitute for the DGP at the earliest.

"He has been diagnosed recently as suffering from early symptoms of lukemania (leukemia). He has been requesting for going to Delhi at least once in a month for his treatment because Goa does not have such medical facilities," Vijayan said in his letter, adding that the absence of the 1985 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer was affecting work.

Kumar, who has also served in Goa as the Inspector General of Police, has been a subject of controversy for the last few months after a legislative committee report called him a police kingpin in Goa's drug mafia.

"The committee is of the firm opinion that the DGP Kishen Kumar of the Goa state is the kingpin in the state police structure which protected and sheltered the drug mafia," says the report that was put together by the committee headed by chairman Francisco alias Mickky Pacheco. The report was submitted to the assembly during the last session.

The report has also said that Kumar indulged in serial stonewalling in a bid to ensure that the House Committee could not get all the necessary documents to fully probe the nexus between the drug mafia and the state police.

"The DGP, who presided over the police establishment when the committee conducted its work, was the lynchpin of this nexus since he led this denial drama before the committee," the report claimed.