From chemist to top cop, A K Khan scripts success story

Hyderabad: He was a cop who made his name tackling communal riots that rocked the city. Mr A.K. Khan. currently government adviser on minority affairs, is widely known in the walled city for his spearheading schools for the minority community. Along the way, he straightened out dacoits, tackled drug peddlers and terrorists, and streamlined traffic just that bit.

Back in the day, Mr Khan jumped from a job as a researcher at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology to the Indian Railway Traffic Service — “I could have been the Railway Board chairman,” he says — to the IPS, where he was placed first in the state and knew he would be posted in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh.

His first posting was in Vijayawada as ASP under training. His father was an IAS officer, and the family moved around a little and Mr Khan learnt his Telugu. “For most part I was in Hyderabad,” he says.

In Kadapa his teacher was Puttaparthy Narayanacharyalu, an eminent writer and poet and Sahitya Akademi award winner. “He used to ask me to write poetry and correct it and this inculcated a lot of interest in that subject.”

Mr Khan started writing short stories intended for constables and their children and the families. “I wrote more than 200 stories. A constable’s son came to thank me when he got into IIT and said my stories had inspired him,” he recalls.

“This boy gave me the idea to publish all the stories in the form of a book. The publisher called it AK97. AK taken from my initials and 97, the number of stories,” he says. The book is being reprinted after its first run of 24,000 copies were sold out. He prefers the Telugu title — Andarki Kavalsina Khan (Khan who is loved by all).

Mr Khan also became famous for his fondness for Sanskrit and he has read and can discuss the Bhagavatam. His favourite, though, is the Arthashastra.

After Vijayawada, he was posted in quick succession to Godavarikhani, a hardcore naxal area, Chittoor — “wherever you go you think you are doing a great job, you get transferred after getting a bloody nose” — and Guntur. It was in Nalgonda where he completed his tenure as SP.

“As young officers that is the time you want to contribute your best,” he says. He riled the powers that be and was moped to vigilance, civil supplies. “For a direct recruit officer this is practically the boondocks,” he says.

Next was Prakasam where the revenue and police were on a collision course and clashes between Dalits and forward castes were common. Highway dacoities were rampant.

The district had a peculiar culture of hired assassins. “All you had to do was hand over a photograph of the person, the address and a certain amount. They would kill anybody anywhere,” Mr Khan says. He introduced welfare schemes, and brought down the hired assassin culture.

Mr Khan was then posted to East Godavari district when the Kapunadu agitation started. 1993-94. “I was the SP sitting in the epicentre.”

After the elections he was promoted  as DIG. “I was given the most difficult ranges those days, Guntur.”

In Guntur, apart from political rivalry, Mr Khan recalls the traffic problem. Mr Khan spent four years there, the longest stint for any DIG.

He did a stint as DCP, Hyderabad. Here he started using the football analogy, he decided that instead of trying to hit the ball into the goal. he would have to change his strategy. That change in mental attitude and not getting into headlong confrontation helped him a lot.

The next job was as head of the CID. He said the police began finding ways to prosecute the offenders. “We started started eight special courts. One of my briefs was to convict them and keep them in for six to seven years, then we could finish off their business,” Mr Khan says. “We had close to 1,100 dacoities but within two years it came down to 200,” he says.

From the CID, he was persuaded to go as IG Vizag range and Vizag police commissioner. “That is one city where I really experimented with traffic. I refined what we had done in Guntur,” he recalls. There was one section on the highway which saw 217 deaths. After making a few changes, the number of deaths came down to 157.

When he became Hyderabad police commissioner. he started an-anti narcotic cell and a cyber police station. He was brought to the capital in the midst of post-Gujarat riots violence. “Every Friday used to be tense. Small incidents and huge communal conflagrations were taking place and they were going on for days on end.”

When he was posted as additional commissioner, law and order, and the general brief was to bring back peace. “One natural advantage I had was that I understood both the cultures and both the languages. The day never ended without my taking a walk in some locality and my not visiting a police station and sitting with the DCP.”

“In six to eight months we brought things under control and lot of modules were busted. Thanks to people policing, we could gain the confidence of the communities. Community policing was done in a big way,” Mr Khan says.

He stayed in the job for four years, moved to traffic and then became Director-General, Fire Services, for eight months, a job he was not keen on. Once there, he tried to build up the department, the rules, regulations and infrastructure and getting a training centre.

“When I was commissioner of police, Hyderabad, I was put into the fire directly, not even the frying pan. The Telangana agitation was raging and within the first few days a huge communal problem came up and we had to keep 25 police stations under curfew. That was a testing period,” Mr Khan recalls. During those two years, the police did not fire a single bullet.

A day after his retirement as ACB Director-General, Mr Khan took over as government adviser on minorities welfare. Two years before taking the job, he had discussed a school project with Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. “I very firmly believed that the minority community, particularly the Muslim minority had to be brought out of the orthodoxy and retrograde thinking and taken forward and the only way of doing it is with high quality secular education.”

This came about the Telangana Minority English Medium Residential Institutions Society (TMEMRIS). The schools have been running for three years. There are now 206 schools with 91,000 students.

“The parents’ main concern was the safety of the girls. And then they said ‘You are taking them at the age of 10 and after eight years after their doing inter you are bringing them back. What will they do then? We are giving them assurances and now we have close to 40,000 girl students in our schools.” he said.

A noteworthy feature from Mr Khan’s life: One movie a week is still a must for the whole family, he says. He reckons he and his wife have seen 1,800 movies in their married life for 33 years.