Police force has become inspector: Former SP

Chennai: The movie-styled police operation that netted the largest mob of gangsters in Chennai’s southern suburb has pepped up the force’s morale with some of the former bosses congratulating Commissioner A.K. Viswanathan for the big kill. “This is a great operation. We must congratulate the Comm
issioner. That his men managed to secure them (gangsters) is a big thing; they got wind of it and acted so swiftly”, said former R. Nataraj, former DGP, who had also held the position of Chennai Police Commissioner for a considerable term. 

“Had it been the other way round—that these gangsters met, ate, drank, celebrated and departed—that would have been a terrible disaster”, he told DC, when asked about the criticism that the incident also demonstrated the deficiency in policing that led to the growth of the mobs in the city and elsewhere.

“We divide the rowdies into three categories—A,B and C.  The police maintain constant surveillance of the ‘A’ category fellows. Constant surveillance is vitally important in city policing as it could prevent crime and also help in quick detection in the case of an offence,” said the former top cop, who is also the AIADMK legislator representing Mylapore now.

On the problems facing the policing now, Nataraj said, “We used to parade the arrested rowdy in the past and that acted as a deterrent, but this is not being allowed now (under the pretext it violates human rights). We need to get a toughie as the station head and he must instill fear among the lawbreakers.

Political rowdyism is another big problem; also diversion of manpower to non-policing duties such as VIP security.”

Many other senior officers—past and present—have expressed concern and disappointment at the manner in which the force has ‘degenerated’ in professional policing over the years. 

“There are 135 police stations in Chennai with intelligence and crime units. Yet the rowdies and rowdyism have been growing exponentially—to such an extent that they could even dare to plan a filmi-type birthday bash for one of the dadas, which only shows the poor policing in the state capital, over many years”, said M. Karunanidhi, who retired as SP (security) a few years ago.

“Chennai used to have just three deputy commissioners under the Commissioner. When I was the Assistant Commissioner in Anna Nagar, DC Subbiah would suddenly drop in. Such incidents were frequent, in all stations, by all the senior officers. Tell me, how many officers make trips to the stations these days? Not just the officers, even the inspectors are not in their stations when the public come with their petitions, as they are away most of the time on other duty or attending some meeting or another with the AC or in the Commi
ssioner’s office. I wonder what these meetings achieve! I had once told the Commissioner to scale down their number but we only find they have incre
ased. Waste of time”.