Jammu and Kashmir police officer Basant Rath was suspended by the Union home ministry on Wednesday. A formal order said the government intended to take action against the 2000 batch Indian Police Service officer for what was described as “repeated instances of gross misconduct and misbehaviour”.
Rath has been ordered to stay put in Jammu and not leave the station without permission of Jammu and Kashmir Police chief Dilbag Singh.
The order did not outline the charges against Basant Rath.
Rath has had differences with Dilbag Singh that had led him to file a police complaint against him last month, expressing apprehensions for his “safety and reputation”. He had marked a copy of the complaint to the police chief.
Rath has also been known to take swipes at the police chief without naming him in his tweets.
The Inspector General of Police-ranked officer 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. Mattu has since then been edged out of the mayor’s post. He lost the confidence vote last month.
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 civvies, and instances where he and his team were accused of hurling abuses and manhandling commuters .
Basant Rath, however, has his set of admirers in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere, particularly after he started shipping out text books 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.
