Taking over as Commissioner of Police on Saturday, Shankar Jiwal said necessary measures will be taken to enforce the lockdown and to to maintain law and order in the city.
Shankar Jiwal, a 1990-batch IPS officer, was posted as the new Chennai Police Commissioner replacing Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal. Mr. Jiwal was a recipient of the President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service in 2019.
Talking to reporters on Saturday, he said: “Only with public cooperation, can there be an effective implementation of the lockdown. It will help to postpone medical emergencies and will curb the spread of virus. The government has given elaborate guidelines for implementation of the lockdown. We will ensure all guidelines are followed. We will enforce the lockdown in a polite manner,” he said.
Mr Jiwal said, “Unfortunately, some of our men have also lost their lives [due to COVID-19]. Soon we will have a standard operating procedure (SOP) for policemen who are vulnerable to the virus. After an SOP was introduced in the Armed Police, no casualty has been reported. A similar SOP will be successfully implemented for the city police.”
“Under this initiative, if anyone in the police force has any symptom, he will be tested and quarantined immediately and necessary medical assistance will be given. Our officers will interact with them daily and monitor their health. We hope to see an improvement soon,” he said.
Law and Order
On law and order, Mr. Jiwal said: “We will curb the menace of rowdyism, ganja sales and black-marketeering of drugs, which are classified as organised crimes. We will do proactive policing and spruce up intelligence. The police will be proactive to curb black-marketeering of life-saving drugs," he said.
During the lockdown, people can lodge their complaints online. Anybody can lodge an online complaint which will be followed up and reviewed. They can also approach police personnel at the stations. “We will definitely look into any complaint or grievance,” Mr. Jiwal said.
Shankar Jiwal was born in 1965 in Almora, Uttarakhand. He knows Tamil, Hindi, English and Kumaoni. He studied B.E. in Mechanical Engineering. While serving as Commissioner of Police, Tiruchi, he introduced e-challans, an integrated traffic management system and locked houses monitoring through SMS.
As IGP, Internal Security, he was instrumental in establishing the Organised Crime Intelligence Unit and modernising the technical surveillance capability of the State’s intelligence units. He also served as the South Zonal Director, Narcotics Control Bureau, and was credited with making the largest seizure of heroin in the country.
Mr. Jiwal was ADGP, Armed Police, Chennai, and headed the Special Task Force (STF) head-quartered at Sathyamangalam in Erode district for the past six years, before being brought to manage Chennai city.
