Colonial heritage building - Lal Bazaar police station, Kolkata, WB

Lalbazar police HQ building, Kolkata.,justdial.com

Lalbazar police HQ building, Courtyard of Lal Bazar Kolkata. Kolkatanoisebreak.com

It is a well-known fact that  West Bengal, especially Kolkata (Calcutta) city  has lots of colonial heritage buildings as it was the capital of colonial India till 1903.Later the capital  was shifted to Delhi. 

Heritage building. Lalbazar police HQ, Kolkata.. noisebreak.com

Among the heritage structures,  the building that houses the Kolkata Police Headquarters in Lallbazaar  stands out as a distinct landmark in that locality, close to the  Tank Square or Dalhousie Square ; in the early days it was an area of ill-repute known for thugs. The street  was known as  Flag Street, for the simple reason it was the hub of visiting sailors. The name had its origin in the presence of a market place  built  by one Edward Tiretta,  Yet another reason  for the name La bazaar is one can see the reflection of the near-by  brick-red  Writer's building in the Tank, hence it was called “Laldighi" and later it became Lal bazzar (Lal in Hindi means red). Further, during the festival days this locality used to become red  littered with red Aabir.

It was in 1792 under the Raj  the headquarters of Calcutta Police was shifted to this locality and initially it was functioning from the Ambassador’s House, built by the East India Company. It also included a make-shift jail called  Harinbari, From here the police HQ was shifted to the Palmer’s House - three-story building (owned by Palmer,one of the richest  businessmenr)  on 18 Lalbazar Street. and the jail was located in the place where in the later years under Lord Curzon Victoria  Memorial Hall made of fine quality marble was built. Subsequently,  Palmer became broke for various reasons, one being he was over charitable. 

Palmer House was pulled down in1914 and in that place came up the Lal Bazaar building complex. The architect was  Henry Crouch, an employee of the government of Bengal. The structure was built by  JC Banerjee, who had built the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation building, located close to the Tank Square. The Kolkata Police Commissioner's office is the  oldest in the country  and  the deputy commissioner (traffic) was functioning on the third floor.  The Kolkata Police Force (KPF) is one of the three presidency police forces of the Indian state of West Bengal. It was in charge of policing  the metropolitan area of  Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), as defined under the Calcutta Police Act, 1866 and the Calcutta Suburban Police Act,1866. The primary  responsibilities included  maintaining law and order in the city, traffic management, prevention and detection of crime and coordinating various citizen-centric services for the people of Kolkata. It was the East India company in 1720, formally appointed an officer to be in charge of civil and criminal administration assisted by Indian natives.. Modernization of the  police  department began in 1866. In 1868, Sir Stuart Hogg set up the Detective Department in Calcutta Police as the incidence of crime was on the increase. Notorious police officer  Sir Charles Augustus Tegart, first Indian Police (IP) headed the Detective Department and he reorganized the city police force and made it efficient. Known for his brutality and torture against the natives in particular freedom fighters he  was the Commissioner of Police from 1923–31. Surprisingly, he survived many assassination attempt on his life by the Bengali revolutionaries. 

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkata_Police