Kolkata police commissioner Ranjit Kumar Panchnanda was removed by chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday evening within hours of her return from the coastal town of Digha, following the death of a policeman during clashes between Congress and Trinamool party workers at a college election in Kolkata.
Surijit Kar Purakayastha is the new commissioner of Kolkata Police.
The chief minister herself said while leaving the state secretariat on Thursday evening that the CP was removed as a fallout of Tuesday's incident, when sub inspector Tapas Chowdhury was killed by a gun weiling youth in front of many policemen in daylight on a busy street of West Kolkata.
Trinamool Congress sources believe that the shuffling was necessitated as the ruling party went into the back foot after the incident as the handling of the police gave an impression that the ruling party's leaders were behind the incident.
Sheikh Suhan, allegedly an aide of Trinamool councilor Mohammad Iqbal (also a Kolkata Municipal Borough 15 chairman) was caught on camera fatally shooting Choudhury.
Secondly, there was resentment among the top police brass in the city over the alleged inaction on part of the police force in the whole matter, allegedly at the behest of their political bosses.
The top Trinamool leadership believed that Panchnanda had acted partially arresting only Trinamool workers though Congress workers were equally responsible for the mayhem.