Kathmandu, Mar. 24: The government has appointed Basanta Bahadur Kunwar as the new Inspector General (IG) of Nepal Police.

A meeting of the Council of Ministers took the decision at 4 PM on Friday. Kunwar was appointed as the new IGP after Inspector General of Police Dhiraj Pratap Singh retired today.

The Council of Ministers on Friday appointed Kunwar, who is number one among the five AIGs who were recently promoted from the post of DIG, as the IG of Nepal Police.

Kunwar, Tekprasad Rai, Deepak Thapa, Shyam Lal Gyawali and Kiran Bajracharya are the high police officials who were promoted to AIG from DIG recently. All these were contenders for the post of IG of Nepal Police.

Former AIGs Sahakul Bahadur Thapa, Uttam Subedi and Dibesh Lohani will also retire from today along with IGP Singh, the IGP has been made from among the newly appointed five AIGs.

According to the Police Act, 2012, the DIGs and AIGs have not been able to work for their full terms due to 30 years of service term provision. After the end of the service period, there is a compulsion to promote them urgently and make them IGPs. This raises questions about the effectiveness of the leadership of the police organization. There is a situation where one has to take over the leadership without having enough experience at higher positions in the police organization.

The newly-appointed Inspector General of Police (IGP) Basanta Bahadur Kunwar has pledged to purify the police force.

After being appointed as the new police chief on Friday, Kunwar said, "I will work internally to revitalize the police force. I will continue the good work done by  former heads of the organization.”

He also promised to take effective initiatives to improve the conduct and behavior of the police.

“I will take initiatives to make the police organization completely people-oriented and people-friendly. Our organization will work for the peace and security of the people," said Kunwar.

He has also promised to make crime investigation technology-friendly and provide various trainings to the police personnel in the field of scientific research.