OC, Kalighat Police Station Suspended For Social Media Post After TMC Complaint To EC
KALKATA: Kolkata Police suspended Kalighat Police Station Officer-in-Charge Goutam Das on Saturday following Trinamul Congress’s complaint against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar against his recent Facebook post which showed him posing with an automatic assault rifle in uniform to fire while sitting in his room, with the message “Ready for new duty…”.
Incidentally, TMC chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s residence also falls under the jurisdiction of Kalighat Police Station. On Friday evening, TMC vice-chairman Joyprakash Majumdar filed a complaint against Mr Das, alleging that his social media post was ‘objectionable’ in terms of the European Commission’s Model Code of Conduct and service codes of conduct.
Later, Chief Electoral Officer West Bengal Manoj Agarwal asked Kolkata Police Commissioner Ajay Nanda about this, who took action within 24 hours. Ironically, Mr. Das was made OC of Kalighat Police Station by the EC before the second and final phase of the Assembly elections. He was previously assigned to the special branch of the city police. The inspector rank cop was replaced by another Chameli Mukherjee, who was OC of Ultadanga Police Station in the northern parts of the city.
This is the second example of strong action against cops in the city during the polls. Earlier, Ramkrishna Kayal, a police officer with the first battalion of the Kolkata armed police, was suspended on April 27, two days before the second phase of polls, for his “behavior on social media” following a viral video showing the alleged ‘Islamisation’ of the state government under the TMC rule.
