Recently, the government of Tamil Nadu appointed Mr. A Arun (1998-batch IPS officer), last posted as the Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Law and Order, as the new Commissioner of Police of Greater Chennai, replacing Mr. Sandeep Rai Rathore (1992-batch IPS officer). This significant reshuffle took place after the brutal assassination of Mr. K Armstrong, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) state president.
Officer Arun was promoted to the rank of ADGP in 2022 and had earlier as Superintendent of Police (SP) of Karur, Kanniyakumari and Tiruppur districts. Besides, he also served as the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) of Anna Nagar and St. Thomas Mount; Joint Commissioner of Police, South; Joint Commissioner of Police, Traffic; Additional Commissioner of Police (ACP), Traffic; and Additional Commissioner of Police, North, in the Greater Chennai City Police. He also has the experience of serving as Commissioner of Police of Tiruchi and Avadi.
Shortly after assuming his new office, Officer Arun declared that he will focus on issues such as law and order, crime prevention, traffic bottlenecks, controlling rowdyism, and preventing corrupt practices in the police and ‘katta panchayat’ (kangaroo court) and most importantly stating that he would “talk to criminals in the language they understand,” hinting at his uncompromising stance against the rowdy menace.
“If you say that law and order has deteriorated, there should be some basis for that. There should be specific statistics. Time and again, crime continues to occur, and we are engaged continuously in preventing it. Only based on statistics can anyone say that crime has increased. As per statistics, be it in Chennai or Tamil Nadu, murders were very few in 2022 and 2023. Anybody can see those statistics,” he said.
Officer Arun asserted that there would be severe consequences if he discovered that no action had been taken on any specific threat to the life of Mr. Armstrong before his murder.
