New police chief has doctorate in traffic mgmt

M A Saleem takes charge as 16th police commissioner of city

Mohammed Abdulla Saleem, most known as M A Saleem in police circle, is not just a new and 16th police commissioner of the city, but also a PhD holder in traffic management, besides having double PG degrees, including police management and training in anti-terrorism.

Addressing media, after receiving the charge from outgoing Police Commissioner K L Sudheer, here on Wednesday, Saleem said, “Mysore is not new to me as I know that people of the city are law-abiding citizens”.

Adducing his knowledge about the city to his short stint of eight months as DCP (law and order) between 1997 and 98, Saleem stressed on three points to make policing effective. They are: transparency, accountability and responsibility.

On the often debated community policing initiative, Saleem said, “Success and failure of the very set up depends on people’s perception. Increase in traffic is the problem of every developing nation, Mysore is not an exception.” When sought to know whether he will chalk out concrete programmes to address the woes on the traffic front, Saleem said, he will identify priorities first, before going ahead with his plans.

However, he admitted to dealing with volume capacity ratio (VCR), the number of vehicles compared with the roads. “However, it becomes a tougher challenge in case of adverse VCR, where the number of vehicle density is more than the roads,” he said.

Profile

A 1993 batch IPS officer, Saleem holds double PG degrees — MCom from Bangalore University and another in police management from Osmania University. He obtained his PhD degree in ‘traffic management’ from Bangalore University in the year 2010. Saleem started as assistant superintendent of police in Gulbarga, later in Kodagu, Sagar in Shimoga district, Mysore and Udupi. He has served the longest of five-and-a-half years in Bangalore till his recent transfer to Mysore.

He was also with the KSRTC for some time. Saleem has training in people-friendly policing from Cambridge University and anti-terrorism training in the USA.

Outgoing cop

K L Sudheer, the outgoing police commissioner, thanked the people of Mysore for their love and affection during his tenure as police commissioner for one year and six months. He described the people of Mysore as ‘peace loving and cultured’.