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Mumbai top cop transfers 13 EOW officers
On Monday, HT had first published the story, ‘After crime branch its EOW’s turn to clean up’, explaining how Nagrale has taken at hand the task of shunting out those officers who are enjoying postings in the same department since a long period.
City’s top cop Hemant Nagrale on Monday shunted out 13 police officers from the economic offences wing (EOW) of Mumbai Police. These officers were serving in EOW for over five years, said a senior IPS (Indian Police Service) officer.
On Monday, HT had first published the story, ‘After crime branch its EOW’s turn to clean up’, explaining how Nagrale has taken at hand the task of shunting out those officers who are enjoying postings in the same department since a long period.
On Monday Vishwas Nangre Patil, joint commissioner of police (law and order), who is holding additional charge of joint commissioner of police (administration), issued the transfer order of five inspectors and eight assistant inspector-rank officers from EOW.
“These officers served in EOW for over five years and are now transferred to side branches, police stations and traffic divisions,” Patil said.
“Generally, a police officer is supposed to serve on a post for a period of three years and then be transferred to other posting. But there are officers in EOW who have been in the department since the past six-seven years,” said a source from EOW.
A senior officer indicated that Monday’s transfer can just be the beginning and a huge chunk of officers who are in EOW since long could be shunted out in the upcoming general transfers, slated to be announced in June.
Recently, joint commissioner of police (EOW) Niket Kaushik had issued an order to all EOW unit heads, directing them to not assign officers, who have served in the unit for over four years, any new cases.
EOW investigates multi-crore financial institution scams, corporate and investment frauds, housing frauds by builders and other white-collar crimes. Cases involving more than ₹6-crore disputes or complex financial crimes are assigned to EOW.
On the backdrop of controversies surrounding suspended assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze and former police commissioner Param Bir Singh, Nagrale after taking charge on March 17 first started taking on cops who might have had developed close proximity with “unwarranted elements” by enjoying long tenure in the same department. Within six days of joining, he had shunted out 84 officers, including 65 from the crime branch.
