Damayanti Sen, City Police Joint Commissioner (Crime), who has with some success been leading investigations into the alleged rape of a 37-year-old woman in Park Street on February 6, an incident that created a huge public outrage, has been transferred.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday approved the recommendation made by Police Establishment Board to transfer Ms. Sen as Deputy Inspector General (Training), Barrackpore. She will be replaced by Pallab Kanti Ghosh, who was earlier the Joint Commissioner (Operations) of the city police.
The move is widely attributed to the fact that Ms. Sen had maintained that the Park Street incident was a rape case even though Ms. Banerjee had insisted that it was “staged” to “malign” her government.
Investigations into the case hit a dead-end when those named in the first information report by the victim were not found to be present at the scene of the crime.
Ms. Sen led a police team which located the vehicle used in the crime with the help of footage of a closed circuit camera and subsequently arrested three culprits on February 18.
The case which raised questions over the security of women was cracked two days after Ms. Banerjee had denied any veracity in the complaint made by the victim.
After the arrest of the accused, Ms. Banerjee's comments invited severe criticism from all sections of society.
However, in an attempt to smoothen ruffled feathers, Ms. Sen along with another senior police officer on February 20 held a press conference and said that Ms. Banerjee “never interfered in our cases.”
She had also pointed out that she had “always worked in the Kolkata Police as a professional, not as an individual.”
