Kolkata: Senior IPS officer Damayanti Sen, whose name became closely associated with the 2012 Park Street rape investigation, has returned to the spotlight after the BJP-led West Bengal government assigned her a key role in a newly formed commission.
The government has constituted two commissions to probe allegations of institutional corruption and crimes against women during the previous Trinamool Congress regime. One of these panels, headed by retired Justice Samapti Chatterjee, will investigate alleged atrocities against women and children, especially those from Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and minority communities. Sen has been appointed as the member secretary of this commission.
Sen, a 1996-batch IPS officer, was Kolkata Police’s Joint Commissioner of Crime when the Park Street case shook Bengal in 2012. A woman had alleged that she was gang-raped inside a moving car after leaving a nightclub on February 6, 2012. The case soon turned into a major political controversy after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee described it as a “fabricated incident”, triggering sharp criticism from women’s groups and opposition parties.
Despite the political heat, Sen’s team continued the investigation and traced the accused within days. The probe established that the complaint was genuine, contradicting the political narrative around the case. Soon after, Sen was transferred from the Crime Branch at Lalbazar to the Police Training College in Barrackpore. Though the government called it a routine administrative move, the timing sparked debate.
Over the years, Sen was seen by many as an officer kept away from politically sensitive investigations. However, her credibility remained intact. In 2022, the Calcutta High Court entrusted her with probes into four rape cases and the much-discussed Rasika Jain death case. Her latest assignment marks a significant comeback in Bengal’s administrative and political landscape.