Bengaluru may see new top cop, Pant likely to be moved

BENGALURU: The Bengaluru City Police is likely to be overhauled next month. With the incumbent Police Commissioner and Director General of Police (DGP) Kamal Pant completing his one-year tenure on August 1, there are chances of him passing on the baton of the city top cop, said informed sources.

The post of the Bengaluru police commissioner is of ADGP rank and Pant is the second DGP-rank officer to head the city police after retired DG&IGP Ajay Singh, who was the city police commissioner in 2005 after his elevation to the DGP post. Pant, an IPS officer of 1990 batch of the Indian Police Service (IPS), was promoted as DGP in April this year following the superannuation of then DGP, Training, PK Garg on April 30.

Names of Additional Directors General of Police (ADGP), Law & Order, Pratap Reddy, B Dayanand (Intelligence) and Amrit Paul (Training) are in contention for the city commissioner’s post. 

‘Bengaluru City police rejig may not be immediate’

Pratap Reddy is from the 1991 batch of the Indian Police Service (IPS), while Dayanand and Paul are from ‘94 and ‘95 batches of IPS.Sources, however, said that the police reshuffle in the city may not be “immediate” since Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has just been sworn in and he would like to address his top priorities, like Cabinet expansion, pandemic and floods, before effecting key bureaucratic transfers.
Bommai earlier held the portfolio of home minister and is familiar with the police setup. It was with his consent that Pant recently transferred 999 head constables, who had spent more than five years at a police station in the city.