Origin of the Kolkata Police

Contents: Preface. 1. Origin of the Kolkata (Calcutta) police. 2. Kotwal becomes superintendent. 3. Commissioner of police. 4. Commissioner and municipal chairman. 5. Calcutta Police : A retrospect. 6. Lalbazar police headquarters. Documents 1 to 67: 1. Treaties, sunnuds, etc. 2. Boundaries of Calcutta. 3. Justices of the peace. 4. Superintendent of police. 5. Police stations of Calcutta. 6. Repealed laws. 7. Calcutta police acts as originally enacted. 8. Current police laws. Index.

"The origin of the Kolkata (=Calcutta) police dates from the landing of Job Charnock in Sutanati, the embryo of the metropolis, on Twenty Fourth August 1690. The modern Police force in India begins from the appointment of a commissioner of police in Calcutta on First November 1856. The commissionerate system of policing is thus the contribution of Calcutta to India. The Kolkata Police is yet to conclude its year-long one hundred fiftieth Anniversary Celebration in November 2006. The evolution of the Calcutta police has not yet been documented; so is also the history of Lalbazar, its headquarters. The Origin of the Kolkata Police by P.T. Nair is the first documented history of the city's guardians of law and order. The author has not spared any pains in unearthing all documents of the Calcutta Police from 1690 to 1866 and present them in this seminal work." (jacket)