Chennai: Four IPS officers have been kept away from work. While two were asked to go on leave, two others have been placed under vacancy reserve (VR) until fresh postings are ordered. These orders have come much to the consternation of their colleagues considering the pressure mounting among peers in crime prevention and maintaining law and order. The instruction to go on leave seems to have come out of the blue and it was a shocker for IPS officers. TN DGP Ashok Kumar was not available for comment.
Two officers in VR had been reporting to headquarters for more than a month without being allotted any work. A section of IPS officers in the state are upset over the issue. It is reportedly the state Police top brass who are stressing out the junior IPS officers mandating them to go either on earned leave (EL) or medical leave (ML).
The last IPS officer asked to go leave on Thursday is Deshmukh Shekhar Sanjay, who is ASP - Kamuthi, Ramanathapuram. Before him, it was Krishnagiri district SP R.Thirunavukkarasu who was transferred during May and is being retained in the VR. Similarly, Virudhunagar ASP Arun Balagopalan was also transferred and placed in VR. Virudhunagar SP P. Aravindhan who had been asked to go on leave has not been allowed to join duty.
The trend came into vogue within a week of the assembly election results being announced on May 19. A senior IPS officer, requesting anonymity, asserted that the quartet had reportedly attracted the ire of the ruling party members when electioneering was at its crescendo. "It is quite customary for each ruling party to keep a set of officials in the doghouse. An IPS officer without a posting means the State is wasting a resource, which otherwise can be diverted for better policing," the official said. Another official with whom DC spoke said that some of them are mulling the option of discouraging future juniors from the National Police Academy from opting for the TN Police cadre.
