Dinkar Gupta is Punjab top cop
CHANDIGARH: The Punjab government on Thursday appointed 1987-batch IPS officer Dinkar Gupta as the new Punjab Police chief.
Gupta, 55, replaces Suresh Arora, who had been on an extension since his retirement on September 30 last year.
Gupta’s appointment was cleared by chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday, said an official statement. Interacting with reporters after taking over as the state’s top cop, Gupta said keeping the border state, facing multiple challenges, safe and secure would continue to be the priority of Punjab police under him.
A decorated officer with a cool head, Gupta was of the seniormost of all three officers, who had been empanelled for the appointment to the top post by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) earlier this week.
The other two officers in the panel were DGP (admn) MK Tiwari and DGP (provisioning) VK Bhawra.
Currently, in the Punjab Police hierarchy, there are five officers, who are senior to Gupta. These Include 1984-batch officers Samant Goyal (on central deputation) and DGP (law and order) Hardeep Dhillon, 1985-batch officer and DGP, special task force, Mohd Mustafa, and 1986batch officers DGP (internal vigilance cell0 Harminder Singh and DGP (PSPCL) Sidharth Chattopadhyaya.
As Hardeep and Harminder are going to retire this year and Goyal being on central deputation, only two officers Mustafa and Chattopadhaya (apart from Gupta), were left fulfilling the condition of having at least two years of service cited by the Supreme Court recently to be eligible to become the state police chief.
Though the state government has included names of Mustafa and Chattopadhyaya on the panel of ‘eligible’ officers sent to the UPSC, the latter didn’t include them on the panel of three officers sent back to the state.
In his previous stint, Gupta was posted as director general of police (intelligence) which involved the direct supervision of Punjab state intelligence wing, state’s anti-terrorist squad (ATS) and organised crime control unit (OCCU). He played a key role in solving high-profile targeted killing cases and busting more than 50 pro-khalistan modules. Gupta is going to retire in 2024.
Gupta was also decorated with the Police Medal for Meritorious Services and the President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service in 2010.
His wife Vinni Mahajan is additional chief secretary (ACS) in Punjab and had served in Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) when Manmohan Singh was the prime minister. He is close to Amarinder, many say, even more than Arora and belongs to Patiala, CM’S home town.