Guwahati police chief replaced, senior officers transferred

In a major reshuffle, the Assam government on Thursday replaced the Guwahati Police commissioner and transferred several other senior officers, amid violent protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, officials said.

City police chief Deepak Kumar was posted as ADGP (Training and Armed Police) and Munna Prasad Gupta was appointed in his place, Commissioner and Secretary (Home and Political) Ashutosh Agnihotri told PTI.

Gupta was earlier posted as IGP (Training and Armed Police).

Several additional director generals of police (ADGP) and superintendents of police (SP) were also transferred.

The transfer order of ADGP (Law and Order), Mukesh Agarwala, who was earlier in the day posted as ADGP (CID), was later partially modified and he is now ADGP (Border), a state Home and Political Department notification said.

G P Singh, who was posted in New Delhi as inspector general of police at the National Investigation Agency, replaced Agarwala as ADGP (Law and Order), it said.

The transfer order of ADGP (CID), L R Bishnoi, who was earlier in the day posted as ADGP (Training and Armed Police), was modified and he will continue as ADGP (CID), the notification said.

ADGP (BIEO), K V Singh Deo was posted as ADGP (Prosecution).

The SPs of Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Dhemaji, Udalguri, Dima Hasao, Guwahati Eastern Zone, Vigilance and Anti-corruption and Border were transferred, the order said.

Jorhat SP N V Chandrakant was replaced by Principal of Police Training College, Dergaon Jitmol Doley.

The postings of SP Special Branch (Eastern Zone) Dhananjay Parshuram Ghanawat and Dhemaji SP V V Rakesh Reddy were swapped.

Dima Hasao SP Sreejith T was transferred as Dibrugarh SP in place of Gautam Borah who was posted as Commandant of the 10th Armed Police Battalion.

SP (Border), Gaurav Abhijit Dilip was posted as Dima Hasao SP.

The postings of Udalguri SP Longnit Terang and DCP (Central) Ripul Das were swapped, as were that of SP (Vigilance and Anti-corruption) Nilesh Tryanmbak Sawakare and DCP (West Guwahati) Khanindra Kumar Choudhury.

Commandant of 10th Armed Police Battalion, Suhasini Sankara was posted as DCP (East Guwahati), replacing Ranjan Bhuyan.

Bhuyan was posted as DCP (Traffic) replacing Prasanta Saikia, who is now SP (Border).

ADGP SN Singh and deputy inspector general of police Anand Prakash Tiwari has also been brought in to supervise the law and order situation in the state, officials said.

Thousands of people defied the curfew in Guwahati and took to the streets, prompting police to open fire, even as protests against the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill intensified in the state.

The legislation seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan after facing religious persecution there.