Politics

Former IPS Officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh Joins BJP After AAP Exit

By Jupinderjit Singh

Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, a former Indian Police Service officer known for high‑profile investigations, has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party after a stint with the Aam Aadmi Party. The 1998‑batch IPS officer began his career in December 1999 as an Assistant Superintendent of Police in Amritsar. He served as Superintendent of Police (City), Senior Superintendent of Police, Deputy Inspector General of the Ludhiana and Jalandhar ranges, Police Commissioner of Jalandhar and Ludhiana, Deputy Inspector General of the Border Range, and Inspector General of the Special Task Force. As Senior Superintendent of Police in Amritsar he promoted a community policing model that he later credited as the “Amritsar Model.”

In 2002, while serving as SP (City) in Amritsar, he exposed an organ‑trade racket that led to the arrest of 12 donors and two middlemen. The investigation expanded to Jalandhar and Ludhiana and became one of Punjab’s largest scandals. In 2018 the state established the Organised Crime Control Unit (OCCU) to tackle gangsters; Kunwar headed the unit as Inspector General and it became a key instrument against organised crime. The OCCU recovered about Rs 31 lakh in cash, a pistol and live cartridges in a gold‑heist case in Ludhiana and arrested a gangster near Chandigarh after first apprehending his accomplice.

Kunwar was the police face of the Pathankot Air Force Station attack on 2 January 2016, coordinating state police operations while the National Security Guard and the Army led the combing operation. He also supervised anti‑terror operations in the border belt.

In November 2019 the Amarinder Singh government asked him to investigate alleged links between politicians and gangsters. The inquiry, titled “Alleged Nexus Between Politicians and Gangsters,” was led by Kunwar, a DIG and an Assistant Inspector General and its findings were released in February 2020.

His most publicized work came during investigations into the 2015 sacrilege incidents and the subsequent police firing at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura. In November 2018 he issued summons to former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal and actor Akshay Kumar under Section 160 of the CrPC; Akshay Kumar later joined the investigation. In February 2019 the Special Investigation Team arrested IGP Paramraj Singh Umranangal, whom Kunwar publicly accused of misleading investigators.

In April 2019 the Election Commission transferred him from the OCCU following a complaint alleging violation of the Model Code of Conduct. Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh later reinstated him as IGP, OCCU, within a month. On 9 April 2021 the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the SIT probe, questioned its methods and ordered a new team without Kunwar. He submitted his resignation, but Amarinder Singh refused to accept it, describing him as a skilled, capable and courageous officer.

Kunwar left the police force in June 2021 and joined the AAP in the presence of party supremo Arvind Kejriwal. He won the Amritsar North seat in the 2022 Assembly elections with 58,133 votes, about 47 % of the vote, defeating his Akali rival by a comfortable margin. In Parliament he questioned his own government over delays in justice for the sacrilege cases, the appointment of officers linked to the earlier SIT, and alleged VVIP treatment of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. He also criticised the AAP for inducting people with alleged criminal links, describing the trend as the “SAD‑isation” of the party.

On 29 June 2025 the AAP suspended him for five years over alleged anti‑party activities, triggered by his questioning of the Vigilance Bureau’s handling of the arrest of senior SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia. He maintained that he was not defending the SAD leader but questioning the government’s handling of the case and that the party had no authority to suspend him. Opposition leaders and Congress leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira described him as a truth‑teller.

Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh has now begun a third political innings with the BJP. The move marks a new turn in the journey of an officer who once built his reputation by taking on powerful political figures and later entered politics promising to challenge the system he had served. Whether his independent and outspoken style will find space in the BJP’s centralised leadership structure remains to be seen.