New top cop reverses Arup Patnaik’s decisions

The city's new police commissioner Satyapal Singh seems to be in the process of undoing many of the decisions of his predecessor Arup Patnaik. Rahul Mahajani reports

The city's new police commissioner Satyapal Singh seems to be in the process of undoing many of the decisions of his predecessor Arup Patnaik.

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With the transfer of the assistant commissioner of police (ACP) Vasant Dhoble, this process is nearly complete. Dhoble had been deputed to the social service branch by Patnaik to streamline Mumbai's nightlife.

A few days ago, police inspector Rakesh Sharma, who headed a special squad under Patnaik in the crime branch control, was shunted out to the local arms division, following controversies.

On the first day of his appointment itself, Singh said he was going to undo Patnaik’s move of getting the social services branch report to the police commissioner, and he placed the SSB under the crime branch.

Soon after Singh took over, a circular was issued giving powers to the zonal deputy commissioner of police to decide about bandobast during anti-encroachment drives. During Patnaik’s tenure, the decision on anti-encroachment drives was taken by the headquarters branch, as a move to break the builder-police nexus.

The decision to place the housing scheme for police personnel under the additional commissioner of police, economic offences wing (EOW), has now been revoked, and the scheme is under the joint commissioner of police (administration).

The EOW FIR’s were placed at the police commissioner’s desk during Patnaik’s tenure as he wanted to monitor its functioning, but now that has stopped. When contacted, Singh said: “I am on bandobast, call me later.” However, later on, Singh did not respond to even SMS.