The Kolkata Police has often faced criticism from the public, with the force being commonly accused of being a puppet institution of the state government.

It came into national spotlight following the 2024 Kolkata rape and murder, after which the force has constantly encountered accusations of being complicit in destruction of evidence.

The watch and ward functions were entrusted to a Kotwal or town prefect who had 45 peons under him, armed with traditional weapons like staves and spears, to deal with miscreants.

In 1794, justices of peace were appointed for the municipal administration of Calcutta and its suburbs, under a chief magistrate who was directly in charge of the Police.

A Commissioner of Police was appointed with powers of a justice of peace to preserve law and order, detect crime and apprehend offenders.

In 1868, Sir Stuart Hogg set up the Detective Department in Calcutta Police with A. Younan as the superintendent and R. Lamb as the first-class inspector.

In response to the threat of the nationalist organisation Anushilan Samiti, Haliday oversaw the creation of the Special Branch in June 1909 on the recommendation of Sir Charles Augustus Tegart.

[9] Sir Charles Augustus Tegart headed the Detective Department was the first cadre of the Indian Police (IP) force in the organisation.

The same time saw the rise of three Bengali police officers named Ramgati Banerjee, Sukumar Sengupta and Zakir Hussain.

After India gained independence from British rule in 1947, Calcutta Police was re-organised as an essential element of the Indian law enforcement agencies.

The emblem of the Kolkata Police, as a vestige of the colonial era, signifies its heritage and allegiance, both of the past and the present, formerly to the British Crown and since 1947, to the Indian Union.

They were originally established as direct-entry ranks reserved for Europeans and Anglo-Indians during the British Raj, but were made available to Indians shortly after independence.

Also, unlike its counterparts in the rest of India, the Kolkata Police Force does not use the conventional five-pointed star for the insignia of ranks of Inspector and Assistant Commissioner.

Instead, the four-pointed Star of the Order of the Bath—used for officer ranks in the Indian Army from its inception till 1950 (when India became a republic and adopted the five-pointed star for relevant insignia and also in the militaries/police forces of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Nations—or the 'pip' (as it is called colloquially in the United Kingdom and the modern Commonwealth of Nations) is used.

[24] The traffic department of Kolkata Police has been criticized for imposing blanket bans on bicycles on major roads and throughfares since 2008.

[27] Despite not being mandated in the Motor Vehicles Act, the Kolkata Traffic Police has been involved in impounding bicycles of riders defying or violating the ban.

For performing stunts, the department tried to raise the penalties from Rs 100 to 1000, but since bicyclists do not require license, it was resisted and heavily slammed by riders.

In August 2024, a female doctor on night duty at R. G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in North Kolkata was raped and murdered.

Following an autopsy of the victim's corpse, which revealed the presence of an abnormally high amount of semen and hinted to the involvement of multiple offenders, a nationwide doctors protest erupted.

On the night of 14 August, during the initial protest, a mob comprising hundreds of vandals—widely accused of belonging to the ruling party of West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress—ransacked the hospital and in doing so, destroyed much of the physical evidence present within it.

[31][32][33] Following this, dissent and defamatory speech on social media (most famously on Twitter) aimed against the force and government's handling of the case was met with cease and desist notices sent by the Kolkata Police's cyber police station, under section 168 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (or the Code of Criminal Procedure).

[35] On 14 September, Inspector Abhijit Mondal of the Kolkata Police was arrested by the CBI for destruction of evidence, compromising the scene of crime and delay in filing a first information report (FIR).

The Calcutta High Court granted bail to the protesters, noting that prima facie neither were their actions politically or religiously motivated, nor was there any evidence of criminal intent as they did not harm anyone; setting the bond at ₹1,000.