A year after multiple Indian Police Service (IPS) officers were dispatched to Manipur by various states and Union Territories to lead Special Investigation Teams (SITs) for violence cases, three states—Punjab, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh—have recalled their officers and sent replacements, according to The Indian Express.

The Supreme Court appointed former deputy national security adviser and former Mumbai Police commissioner Dattatray Padsalgikar as the “overall monitor” for a CBI probe into instances of sexual violence in Manipur on August 3 of the previous year. Following this, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs directed all states and UTs to nominate officers for the SITs.

Sources reveal that the decision to rotate officers began when some who had been appointed at the superintendent of police (SP) rank were promoted to deputy inspector general (DIG) in January and requested to return to their home cadres. Padsalgikar is said to have recommended a rotation policy for SIT officers due to the difficult law and order situation in Manipur.

On September 6, the Manipur DGP, Jayanta Singh, IG (Admin), issued an order relieving Madhya Pradesh cadre IPS officers Alok Kumar and Rajeev Kumar Mishra and replacing them with Ramsharan Prajapati and Sushil Ranjan. Similarly, Haryana replaced Surinder Pal Singh, a 2010-batch IPS officer, with Rajender Kumar Meena, a 2011-batch officer, while Punjab swapped out Shubham Aggarwal, a 2018-batch officer, for Aditya S. War, a 2020-batch officer. Additionally, Madhya Pradesh recalled Ashutosh Bagri from the CBI headquarters in Delhi and replaced him with Vaishnav Sharma, a 2012-batch IPS officer.

These changes aim to address the challenges faced by SIT officers in Manipur, where they are engaged in critical law and order duties. The rotation policy is expected to facilitate a smoother investigation into the violence cases.