Punjab Shuffles 12 IPS Officers; V Neeraja Named Special DGP for NRI Affairs

The Punjab government transferred 12 IPS officers with immediate effect on Sunday, touching senior posts across vigilance, cyber crime, anti-narcotics and the police commissionerates of Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar. The order, issued by the Department of Home Affairs, Home-I Branch, was among the larger single-day reshuffles the state has ordered this year.

The department that changed hands most visibly was NRI affairs, a portfolio Punjab treats as a priority given the size of its diaspora and the volume of property and marriage-related disputes it generates. V Neeraja, a 1994-batch officer who was Special DGP, Cyber Crime, has been moved to Special DGP, NRI, Punjab, replacing Rajesh Kumar Jaiswal. Jaiswal, from the 1997 batch, takes over cyber crime in her place while continuing to hold the additional charge of ADGP, Jails.

Both officers carry long records in specialised policing rather than field postings, and the swap effectively rotates two experienced hands between two of the force's more technical verticals. Neither has been given an entirely unfamiliar brief: Jaiswal previously held the NRI charge himself before this order, so cyber crime is the newer assignment for him.

Below the DGP and ADGP ranks, the reshuffle reworked several DIG, AIG and DCP positions. Nanak Singh, DIG of Ropar Range, picks up additional charge of the Internal Vigilance Cell. Vatsala Gupta moves from a Ludhiana-based commandant posting to AIG, Pers-II, while Pragya Jain takes over the anti-narcotics and internal security charges she vacates. In the commissionerates, Arvind Meena, Akarshi Jain, Jasroop Kaur Batth and Aditya S. Warrier have all been moved into DCP-rank postings across Ludhiana, Amritsar and Jalandhar.

The order also covers three younger officers from the 2021 and 2022 batches — Jayant Puri, Ashok Meena and Dharavath Sai Prakash — who take up ADCP and SP-rank investigation charges in Amritsar, Sri Muktsar Sahib and Ludhiana respectively, replacing PPS-cadre officers who had been holding those posts.

Punjab's Home Department has become known for reshuffles that combine a handful of high-profile changes at the DGP and ADGP level with a longer tail of postings at the district and commissionerate level, and Sunday's order follows that pattern closely. All 12 officers have been directed to join their new postings immediately.