Punjab Police gets new chief vigilance officer, intel chief

An order to this effect was issued by Director General of Police VK Bhawra.

In another order, issued by Punjab Home Department, 1988-batch IPS officer Prabodh Kumar, who was Special DGP (Investigation, Lokpal), has been appointed as Special DGP (Intelligence) against the vacant post. Amardeep Singh, a 1994-batch IPS officer who was ADGP Intelligence, has been transferred as ADGP Traffic. IPS officer S S Srivastava of 1994-batch, who was ADGP Traffic, has been posted as ADGP Intelligence in place of Rai.

Prabodh Kumar, who has been appointed Intelligence wing chief, had been at loggerheads with former IG Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, now an AAP MLA from Amritsar North, who had resigned and decided to take a political plunge after Punjab and Haryana High Court in April last year quashed his investigation report into Kotkapura police firing case of October 2015.

There was controversy over Kunwar Vijay filing a chargesheet in a trial court allegedly without taking other four members of the SIT including senior-most and then an ADGP rank officer Kumar in loop. Kunwar Vijay had cited rules that nothing prevented him from filing the chargesheet single-handedly under his signatures. In November 2018, when former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal noticed that only Kunwar Vijay had come to his place to question him, he asked the IPS officer to arrange a phone call with Kumar. Kunwar Vijay dialled the number and Badal told Kumar on phone: “Main chahunda si tusin vi aa jao..changa hunda…Je tuhanu convenient nahi taan main aa jaana tuhade kole (I wish that you too should come…it would have been better…If it is not convenient for you, I can come to you).”

The questioning continued for nearly 45 minutes after Kumar Vijay arrived. Badal termed his questioning as “politically motivated”.

Kunwar Vijay did not respond to calls and text messages for his comment.