Union home ministry has extended the suspension of Jammu and Kashmir police officer Basant Rath for another six months, says after he wrote to home secretary Ajay Bhalla calling the suspension order “unscrupulous” and “unethical exercise”. Basant Rath was first suspended in July 2020 for what was described as “repeated instances of gross misconduct and misbehaviour”.
“[The] President, after considering the facts and circumstances of the case and the recommendations of the Central Review Committee, has come to the conclusion that Shri Basant Kumar Rath, IPS (AGMUT: 2000) shall continue to remain under suspension for a further period of 180 days beyond 31.07.2023 i.e., upto 27.01.2024,” the order dated July 28 said.
Rath, an Inspector General of Police-ranked officer, has had differences with Jammu and Kashmir director general of police Dilbag Singh that had led him to file a police complaint against him in June 2020, expressing apprehensions for his “safety and reputation”.
Rath was shunted to the nondescript home guards and civil defence department from the traffic in November 2018 after a spat on Twitter with Junaid Mattu, who had just been elected Srinagar Mayor.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
{{^usCountry}}
In the nine-odd months that he oversaw the traffic department, Basant Rath and his unorthodox style did have its fair share of critics and admirers. The police brass, for one, didn’t take too well to his working in the field in civilian clothes, and instances where he and his team were accused of hurling abuses and manhandling commuters.
{{/usCountry}}
{{#usCountry}}
In the nine-odd months that he oversaw the traffic department, Basant Rath and his unorthodox style did have its fair share of critics and admirers. The police brass, for one, didn’t take too well to his working in the field in civilian clothes, and instances where he and his team were accused of hurling abuses and manhandling commuters.
{{/usCountry}}
Rath however, has his set of admirers in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere, particularly after he started shipping out textbooks and study material for young Kashmiris in remote parts of the state so that they could study for competitive examinations even if they didn’t have the resources.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
Get the latest India News, breaking headlines and real-time updates from across the country. Stay informed about politics, government policies, crime, weather major national developments and Karnataka Bandh LIVE.
Get the latest India News, breaking headlines and real-time updates from across the country. Stay informed about politics, government policies, crime, weather major national developments and Karnataka Bandh LIVE.
Home/India News/IPS officer Basant Rath's suspension extended by six months
{{^htLoading}}
Advertisement
{{/htLoading}}
SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
{{#usCountry}}{{/usCountry}}
Notifications
Get breaking alerts directly from the newsroom
Notifications are on!You'll be notified when news breaks
