Human Rights and Law Enforcement

Sanker Sen, former Director-General, National Human Rights Commission and former Director of the SVP National Police Academy, joined the Indian Police Service in 1960. He graduated from the Presidency College, Calcutta and obtained a Master's degree from the Calcutta University. He was allotted to Orissa Cadre and held there many important assignments with distinction. He had a spell of about seven years in the Central Intelligence Bureau. On promotion he went back to the State and joined as DIG of Police, Western Range, Rourkela. He was then posted as DIG, incharge of the Criminal Investigation Department in Orissa. He joined Border Security Force as the inspector General in 1987 and was later on promoted as the additional Director General. There-after, he was posted as the Director of the SVP National Police Academy, the premier institution for training of senior police officers of the country. As the Director of the NPA he was responsible for many innovative changes in the training programmes of the police officers. He was awarded the Police Medal for Meritorious Severice in 1979 and President's Police Medal for Distinguished Service in 1986. On completion of his assignment in NPA he joined as the Director-General of the National Human rights Commission and later on functioned as the Special Rapporteur, incharge of the custodial programme of the NHRC. His books "Police Today" and "Human Rights in a Developing Society" won acclaim from the academics, experts in the field of law-enforcement as well as human rights activists.