PUNE: In a late Wednesday night order, the Maharashtra government transferred controversial Pune city Police Commissioner Jayant Umranikar, and replaced him with Satyapal Singh, Nagpur police commissioner, who is a 1980 Indian Police Service (IPS) batch officer. Umranikar has now been posted to the less significant posting of additional director general of police (training) Mumbai.
Pravin Dikshit, who comes after a long stint with the Intelligence Bureau in Delhi, is posted as Nagpur police commissioner in place of Satyapal Singh.
The new Pune police commissioner, who did a brief stint in Nagpur, is credited with breaking the backbone of several underworld gangs during his tenure in Mumbai as joint commissioner of police (crime). He had also busted several property rackets, when he was a deputy commissioner of police in Mumbai.
Umranikar, who is more popularly known for his job as Research and Analysis (RAW) officer in Indian missions in Pakistan and Gulf countries, had lately been in the news for all the wrong reasons.
But the former city police chief came under fire after violent attacks on professional education institutes by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) workers during the past four days.
His transfer orders came suddenly at the police headquarters, after heads of the educational institutes under MNS attacks met district guardian minister Ajit Pawar. The institute heads reportedly had made a point to the alleged dragging of feet by the city police on the MNS issue.
During their meeting with Pawar, heads of five educational institutes that were attacked by the MNS minced no words in expressing their unhappiness over the city police allegedly remaining mute spectators to the MNS attacks.
