Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh Shunted Out, Hemant Nagrale Takes Over

Police Commissioner of Mumbai Param Bir Singh was replaced by Hemant Nagrale on Wednesday, nearly a year after he took charge of the office in the country’s commercial capital. The 1988-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer had taken over from IPS officer Sanjay Barve on February 29, 2020.

According to sources, Singh was shunted out following the row over Mumbai police officer Sachin Waze’s alleged involvement in placing an explosives-laden vehicle near an industrialist’s residence in the city. Waze was on Sunday remanded to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) custody till March 25.

Singh, recently, also made news as he spearheaded the probe in the alleged TRP scam, where households were apparently asked to keep channels switched on the entire day. At least five news and entertainment channels were found allegedly involved in rigging the Television Rating Points (TRP) to attract more advertisements.

Singh has previously served as the Director General (DG) of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and the Police Commissioner of Thane.

In Thane, he had supervised several high profile cases including the investigation into the Ephedrine drug bust case, in which former actor Mamta Kulkarni was also named. During Singh’s tenure as the police commissioner, the Thane police also busted a large-scale fake call centre racket.

Earlier in the 90’s, Singh had also led the special squad, which conducted several encounters against underworld criminals.

In 2005, he had landed in a controversy for “falsely framing” the co-owner of Provogue, Salil Chaturvedi, in a drug case. Singh was the ADG (law & order) during the arrests of nine activists by Pune Police in connection with the Elgar Parishad case. Singh had overseen the arrest of BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur in connection with the Malegaon 2008 blast case.

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here