West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appointed Manoj Kumar Verma as Kolkata’s new police chief on Tuesday following her meeting with protesting junior doctors on Monday. Verma’s appointment as Kolkata’s new Police Commissioner at this crucial juncture, when the state is witnessing widespread doctors’ agitation, has generated public interest in knowing more about him.
Before being tipped for the city’s top cop, Verma was serving as Additional Director General (Law and Order) in the Bengal Police. A 1998 batch IPS officer, Verma has many feathers in his cap as an upright police officer. An alumni of National Police Academy, Hyderabad, Verma has been a decorated police officer. He was awarded the President’s Police Medal for Meritorious Service (PMMS) in 2017 as Inspector General of Traffic Police and the Chief Minister’s Police Medal for his role as Barrackpore Police Commissioner in 2019. He has also served as ADG (Intelligence Bureau).
Born to a middle class family at Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan, Verma is a mechanical engineering graduate. He showed his mettle in his very first posting as Superintendent of Police (SP) at West Midnapore where he earned public laurels for his role in curbing Maoist activities.
But it does not mean that Verma has not courted controversy. The latest was during his tenure as West Bengal ADG (law and order). He was greeted with severe criticism for labeling the Nabanna Abhijan rally (organized in support of agitating doctors) “illegal” and treating it as an act aimed to incite unrest in the state. But his action suited the interests of his political masters. It perhaps paid dividend.
