Union Home Ministry prematurely repatriates top Srinagar police official to Manipur

Union Home Ministry has prematurely repatriated top Srinagar police official Rakesh Balwal to Manipur. Manipur is in the grip of fresh violence.

The official order of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievance and Pensions stated in the order that Balwal, who is in AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory) cadre, is now being sent to Manipur cadre after approval from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet.

Balwal, a 2012-batch IPS officer, is of Manipur cadre posted in Jammu and Kashmir and in 2021 he took over as Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) in Srinagar.


Balwal has served in National Investigation Agency (NIA) as Superintendent of Police (SP) and part of the team which investigated the 2019 Pulwama terror attack, in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.

A senior official in Manipur who does not want to be named told ET, “Balwal has experience in controlling the riots and his expertise will be handy in controlling the ethnic strife in Manipur. He will look after cases filed during the several month long ethnic strife.

The Manipur government in the Supreme Court had submitted its status report of over six thousand zero FIRs that were filed across the state in the past three months of ethnic violence.