Origin of The Kolkata Police

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The origin of the Kolkata (Calcutta) Police dates from the landing of Job Charnock in Sutanati, the embryo of the metropolis, on 24th August 1690. The modern Police Force in India begins from the appointment of a Commissioner of Police in Calcutta on 1st November 1856. The Commissionerate system of Policing is thus the contribution of Calcutta to India. The Kolkata Police is yet to conclude its year-long 150th anniversary celebration in November 2006. The evolution of the Calcutta Police has not yet been documented; so is also the history of Lalbazar, its headquarters. The Origin of the Kolkata Police by P. T. Nair is the first documented history of the city's guardians of law and order. He has not spared any pains in unearthing all documents of the Calcutta Police from 1690 to 1866 and present them in this seminal work.

P. Thankappan Nair (b. 1933), hailed as the 'bare-foot historian', and talkin', walkin', livin', encyclopaedia of Kolkata has produced no less than 47 tomes, out of which 40 are on the city of his choice. He has received exposure on the electronic and other media, at home and abroad. besides felicitation addresses and mementoes from several institutions of Calcutta, including the University of Burdwan, which conferred on him a D. Litt. After working as a Research Professor of the Asiatic Society for about a decade, he is now concentrating on Kolkata's heritage. The Kolkata Police which is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its service by contributing the Commissionerate system to the policing of India is an occasion which called for this tribute from this introvert Calcuttologist.

If West Bengal is really today an oasis of peace in India, the credit for this distinction should go to the Calcutta (Kolkata) Police Kolkata, at the same time, is the least policed metropolis in India ever since Job Charnock chose it for the headquarters of the East India Company's trade in Bengal. Job Charnock's Calcutta grew into the British capital of India. The spark of every revolutionary movement in India was given from here and the country was overtaken by revolutions. The call for the Great Mutiny of 1857 was given from Barrackpore in the suburbs of Calcutta and Freedom Movement in the wake of the Partition of Bengal in 1906 originated here. The Naxalites raised their ugly heads in Calcutta in the 1970's and terrorism and cyber crimes are the latest menaces. The Calcutta Police has risen on every occasion and has been able to deal with every form of crime, for it has got the best system of Police administration, perfected by the British intelligence over the years. The British bureaucracy evolved the Commissionerate system for Calcutta after an experiment of 150 years. This system has stood the test of the time.

The Commissionerate system of Police administration is, therefore, the contribution of Calcutta. The Commissioner of Calcutta Police is the most powerful Police Officer in West Bengal, for he is not only the chief of Police of Calcutta and its suburbs, but is also the licensing authority for several establishments. The Commissioner of Calcutta Police was the executive head of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation as well till 1889.

**Contents and Sample Pages**