Chennai: Stuck between warring factions of the AIADMK, top cops in Tamil Nadu are struggling to remain professionally neutral.
“What are we supposed to do? Both sides are blaming us. We are trying to go by the rule book and the Governor is closely watching the activities of the police.
While the O. Panneerselvam camp want the police to remove the MLAs from the Golden Bay resort in Koovathur, the Edappadi K Palanisamy camp is accusing us of crossing the limit,” disclosed a senior police officer.
It may be noted that caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam has not made any major appointment of police officials. Most of the appointments made by late chief minister Jayalalithaa have not been changed.
Only on Monday, Mr Panneerselvam brought in a new inspector general of police (intelligence) and also transferred out additional SP, KPS Jayachandran of special branch, a relative of VK Sasikala’s brother Dhivakaran. Dhivakaran’s daughter is married to Jayachandran’s son.
“This is the time for police to remain neutral and act professionally. And I think in the present crisis, they are handling the situation professionally. FIRs are being registered whenever there is a compliant. Enquiry is also being conducted. Police had been actively probing complaints against people belonging to Sasikala camp despite the fact that most of the senior officials had been more familiar with them than those from OPS camp,” one officer pointed out.
The FIRs were registered because the governor was closely monitoring the developments and asking for details. Otherwise they may not have registered the case, another officer pointed out, adding that top police officials worried about how Edappadi would react if he comes to power.
Another officer jokingly noted that it’s time for the police officers to follow Taoism, the Chinese philosophy which advocates people to go with the flow to achieve happiness. “Instead of trying to get things done in a hard way, our officers should take the time to figure out the natural, easy way to do things and everything would get done more simply. This is called “doing by not doing,” the officer added.
