Senior police officer Vijay Kumar shifted from Kashmir to Delhi

ADGP Vijay Kumar.
| Photo Credit: NISSAR AHMAD

Vijay Kumar, an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer who became the public face of the police in volatile Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, was transferred from Jammu and Kashmir to Delhi on Thursday.

Mr. Kumar is among four IPS officers who received transfer orders. He will take up a new assignment with the Delhi segment of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre. “Vijay Kumar, IPS (AGMUT:1997), Additional Director General of Police, is hereby relieved from Jammu and Kashmir on 30.01.2025, to take up his new assignment at Delhi Segment of AGMUT Cadre,” the government order said.

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Another IPS officer who was transferred is Anand Jain, who has been relieved from his post as Additional Director General of Police, Jammu Zone, and has now been posted as ADGP Armed, J&K. IPS officer Bhim Sen Tuti will replace Mr. Jain as Inspector General of Police (IGP) of the Jammu Zone.

Impressive record

Mr. Kumar received a gallantry medal on Republic Day 2025 for playing “a key role in averting a possible terror attack on the Amarnath Yatra three years ago” in Kashmir. 

As the IGP, he pushed new policies such as denying militants the right of burial in their native villages, ensuring that over 158 militants were buried away in the foothills, “to stop glamourisation” of militancy. Mr. Kumar is also considered the brain behind the elaborate “G-plan”, the burial plan of top separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani who died in September 2021 in Srinagar. He identified a burial spot near his house in the night to avoid law and order problems.

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Under Mr. Kumar’s leadership, the police managed to kill top militant ‘commanders’ like Reyaz Naikoo, Qari Yasir, Haider, and Burhan Koka. His tenure saw a ban being slapped on the influential Jamaat-e-Islami and the J&K Liberation Front. He also tracked the nexus between the Hizbul Mujahideen’s Naveed Mushtaq alias Babu and the J&K Police’s Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Singh.

With regard to politics, the IPS officer took a counter position to then-J&K Director General of Police R.R. Swain, who attacked local mainstream parties as being part of the problem in Kashmir.