Pratap Reddy is new city police chief

Bengaluru

The State government on Monday transferred city Police Commissioner Kamal Pant, replacing him with C.H. Pratap Reddy, who was serving as Additional Director-General of Police (Law and Order).

Mr. Pant has been posted as Director-General of Police, (Recruitment ), relieving R. Hitendra from his concurrent charges.

The post of the Bengaluru Police Commissioner is of ADGP rank, and Pant is the second DGP-rank officer to head the city police after Ajay Kumar Singh, who was the city Police Commissioner in 2005 after his elevation to the DGP post. Mr. Pant is a 1990 batch officer.

A 1991 batch officer, Mr. Reddy hails from Andhra Pradesh, and is a B.Tech graduate. He started his career as Additional SP, Hassan, and served in various districts before heading the cybersecurity wing of the National Association of Software and Services Companies ( NASSCOM). He also served in the Anti-Corruption Bureau in CBI Bengaluru and Mumbai, Inspector General of Police, CID, and Additional Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru.

Mr. Pant, who took charge as city police chief in August 2020 replacing Bhaskar Rao, had many challenging tasks, including the D.J. Halli violence, and the recent J.J. Nagar incident where a youth was stabbed in a road rage. The incident took on a communal colour after the Home Minister stated that the victim was stabbed to death by a Muslim youth for not knowing Urdu. While the Police Commissioner maintained that it was a road rage incident, the ruling BJP accused Mr. Pant of lying and forced the government to hand over the case to the CID, which concluded that there was no Urdu angle to the incident.

Mr. Pant is also credited with handling many sensitive cases amicably, including the azaan and hijab issues.

The other officials transferred include Alok Kumar, ADGP , KSRP who replaced Mr. Reddy and has been posted as  ADGP law and order.