Miffed Bedi goes on a 3-month protest leave

NEW DELHI: As Yudhbir Singh Dadwal formally took over as Delhi police commissioner from KK Paul on Thursday, super cop Kiran Bedi, who lost out in the race to Dadwal, went on a three month long ‘protest leave’, blaming the Centre and bureaucracy of gender bias while making appointments to top government offices.

Bedi, presently director general of the bureau of police research and development said, “Though we’ve a woman as our constitutional head now, the government and the bureaucracy are still apprehensive about appointing women in high offices.

It had happened earlier when Shiv Shankar Menon pipped Veena Sikri for the post of foreign secretary and now it has happened with me too.”

Not sparing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Bedi said: “The PM has let me and the whole police system down. In a democracy, the only person who can undo any injustice meted out to a citizen is the PM.

I still have trust in him and hold him in high regard and hope that he takes cognisance of the fact that seniority and merit was being bypassed to favour some people.”

However, the top cop said: “My focus would be on professional excellence, humane policing and redressal of public complaints.”