Alok Kumar to make comeback as police commissioner?

By NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Senior IPS officer Alok Kumar might be reappointed as the new Bengaluru police commissioner according to various reports.

Alok Kumar has served as the city’s commissioner from June to August in 2019. Incumbent Kamal Pant has been serving for one year and eight months now. Normally, Bengaluru’s police commissioners are replaced every year. However, reports said that Kamal Pant has been serving an extended tenure due to Covid-19-related restrictions. In addition to the above reason, change in senior-level leadership, including swapping of the state’s chief minister hindered the police chief’s role change, reports said.

Kamal Pant is a 1990-batch IPS officer of the Karnataka cadre. He was appointed as the 34th commissioner of Bengaluru Police in mid-2020, succeeding his batch mate Bhaskar Rao. Local reports speculated that talk of the police commissioner being replaced has renewed in the government as Kamal Pant has been serving for a year and half in the position that is usually open for a restricted one-year period only.

As per reports, from six months ago, it was believed that B Dayananda, working in the intelligence department of the state government, would succeed Kamal Pant as the commissioner.

Alok Kumar had resigned from the post of police commissioner after a month-and-a-half-long tenure in the wake of phone-tap allegations, and was transferred as the additional director general of police (ADGP) to Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP).