After 22 days, UP gets police chief in OP Singh

Lucknow, Jan 23: After a gap of 22 days — the longest in the history of the Uttar Pradesh Police — the state got a new Director General of Police (DGP) on Tuesday as OP Singh took over the charge in the presence of senior officials of the department. The 1983-batch IPS officer was relieved by the central government from the post of the Director General (CISF) last week.

Soon after coming from the tiol capital, Singh met senior Home Department officials and on Tuesday visited the famous Hanuman Setu temple to propitiate the Hindu monkey God before driving to the DGP office at 1, Tilak Marg here. A new me plate bearing the me of the police chief was quickly put up outside his official residence, adjoining the police headquarters.

His predecessor Sulkhan Singh demitted the office following his retirement and after a three-month extension, on December 31 last year and the post had been lying vacant ever since.

Singh had been med as the new police chief by the Yogi Adityath government, but he had not been relieved by the Centre, much to the embarrassment of the state government.

However, it was reliably learnt that Chief Minister Adityath’s will prevailed over others and OP Singh was relieved from the Centre. He has a two-year-plus tenure left and this could give him an edge in controlling crime, old timers feel.

Singh has been police chief in Almora (undivided UP), Lucknow, Allahabad, Moradabad, Lakhimpur Kheri and Bulandshahr before serving in the state Intelligence Department and the CISF and the NDRF at the Centre. (IANS)