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Srinagar, July 18 (UNI) After nearly 18 years, Jammu and Kashmir will again have a Director General of Police (DGP) who is a resident of the state.

The Jammu and Kashmir Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad here last evening, promoted and appointed senior IPS officer Kuldeep Khoda as the new DGP of the state.

Mr Khoda, a Kashmiri Pandit and a resident of downtown Srinagar, replaced Mr Gopal Sharma who was appointed as the Security Advisor to the Chief Minister.

The last DGP from the state was Mr Ghulam Jeelani Pandit who retired in December 1989.

He was followed in order by Mr J N Saxena, Mr B S Bedi, Mr M N Sabharwal, Mr Gurbachan Jagat, Mr A K Suri and Mr Gopal Sharma, all from outside Jammu and Kashmir.

Mr Khoda is the fourth DGP from the home state. The other three were Peer Ghulam Hassan Shah, Mr M M Khajuria and Mr Pandit. Mr Shah was the first DGP of Jammu and Kashmir. Before him, the state police chief used to be an Inspector General of Police (IGP).

With Mr Khoda's appointment, the Jammu and Kashmir government has finally managed to nominate a state resident on the top police post.

Prior to this, Mr Khoda, a 1974 batch IPS officer of Jammu and Kashmir cadre, was the state intelligence chief.

As Superintendent of Police (SP), Poonch, from August 1984 to October 1986, he ensured arrest of several subversive elements involved in trans-border arms movement. A huge cache of arms was also seized from the area in 1985-86, signaling intentions of Pakistan which later on gradually grew into full scale cross-border movement of infiltrators for training and militancy.

As Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), Doda-Udhampur Range, Mr Khoda conceived and implemented the Village Defence Committee (VDC) scheme to combat militancy in the area. In Doda, 100 VDCs were set up in 1995. As the Jammu police chief (IGP), he extended the VDC scheme to entire Jammu province in 1996.

It was Mr Khoda who for the first time conceived and implemented the proposal of recruiting and deploying Special Police Officers (SPOs) for counter-insurgency operations in the troubled state.

As IGP Jammu, he selected as many as 300 SPOs each for Poonch and Rajouri districts in 1997.

According to Mr Khoda, the twin objective was to deploy local boys for intelligence collection and translate that into operations in the militancy-affected areas of Poonch and Rajouri. The scheme proved so successful that it was extended to the entire state, he added.

Mr Khoda has held appointments involving intelligence collection, planning and execution of anti-militancy operations during the past 16 years of turmoil in the state.

During his service, he has won many awards, including President's Police Medal for Meritorious Services in 1993 and President's Police Medal for Distinguished Services in 1999 and Operation Vijay (Kargil) medal in 2004.

UNI