Meitei organisation demands removal of Biren Singh’s security advisor: Who is Kuldiep Singh?

After three missing Meitei men were found dead in Manipur on Thursday, following a fresh bout of violence in the state, the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), a Meitei organisation, demanded that Chief Minister N Biren Singh replace security adviser and former CRPF Director General Kuldiep Singh, who is incharge of the unified command.

COCOMI said in a statement Friday that the “prevailing security arrangements have undeniably failed” and that the role of the security adviser over the past eight months of the conflict in the state “has been utterly ineffective, with no discernible signs of improvement”.

Singh had been sent to Manipur as security adviser to the CM in the aftermath of violence in May.

The 1986-batch IPS officer of the West Bengal cadre was seen as the right man for the job – an officer not known to mince his words, and to keep his approach to the most complex of issues simple and straight.

Sources in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs had told The Indian Express that Singh, who retired as CRPF DG in September 2021, was chosen by the Centre due to his vast experience in conflict zones, spanning West Bengal’s Junglemahal and Darjeeling, to Chhattisgarh. His appointment, sources said, was done on a nudge from Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who has been so impressed with Singh’s work that after then NIA Director Y C Modi retired in May 2021, Singh was given additional charge of the agency and continued to hold the dual responsibilities for more than a year.

In fact, he is believed to be one of the few IPS officers to have a direct line with the Home Minister.

Shah was said to be particularly impressed with Singh’s leadership in the smooth conduct of the 2021 West Bengal polls, which have a history