Kolkata Police

The Kolkata Police has the task of policing the metropolitan area of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India, as defined under the Calcutta Police Act, 1866 and the Calcutta Suburban Police Act,1866.

Mission

Observance of the following values is at the core of Kolkata Police's daily civil protective duties and criminal investigative functions:

• Obedience to the Constitution of India and Rule of Law.
• Respect for the dignity of all those they protect.
• Fairness and neutrality in enforcement of law.
• Compassion and building community relations to serve the people better.
• Uncompromising personal and institutional integrity.

History

The history of the present structure of policing in Kolkata goes back to colonial times, when the city was known as "Calcutta", and was a fledging settlement of the English East India Company. Calcutta was founded by an Englishman, Job Charnock, who was then a key functionary of the Company, had anchored his boat Maddapollam at a village called Sutanuti on the eastern banks of the Hooghly, in 1690. This formed the nucleus of a fortified military settlement which in 1696 (3 years after Charnock's death) along with the villages of Gobindapur and Kalikata, became a prime location for the East India Company's operations in Bengal.

Policing in Calcutta's earliest days was confined to the Mughal administration and their local representatives. Bengal was still technically a part of the Mughal Empire, but the Nawabs of Bengal, based in Murshidabad...
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