Senior IPS officer Sunil Kumar Jain was appointed on Thursday as the acting chief of Meghalaya Police following the retirement from service of Rajiv Mehta.
The state's Congress-led government had written to the Union Home Ministry with a request to extend Mehta's service for another three months in view of the continuity of anti-insurgency operations in Garo Hills but the request was declined.
"Since the central government did not concede to our request, Jain, a 1984 batch IPS officer is allowed to hold temporary charge of the post of DGP in addition to his own duties with effect from the date of taking over charge and until further orders," said a state government official.
Mehta will hand over the baton of DGP of Meghalaya to Jain, who will retire on October 2016, on Friday.
Meanwhile, the State Security Commission headed by Chief Minister Mukul Sangma will have to convene a meeting to shortlist five senior IPS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre to succeed Mehta.
The Meghalaya Police Act, 2010 says that only those officers who have more than one year of service left would be empanelled, and in the reckoning are Y.C. Modi, P.S. Purohit, Raghvendra Awasthi, Swaraj B. Singh and R.P. Agarwal. Some of them are serving outside the state.
--IANS
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