'Better policing top priority'

Seemanth Kumar Singh takes charge as 1st Commissioner of Mlore

Speaking to media persons after receiving charge from IGP (Western Range) and In-Charge Commissioner Gopal B Hosur at the latter’s office, Singh said that better policing would be his top priority.

Stating that he would try to meet the expectations of the members of the public, he hoped to tackle several issues pertaining to the district as and when they come. “It will take some time before the new commissionerate becomes fully functional as several committees have to be set up,” he said and assured to introduce innovative ventures depending on the need.

To a query on whether the work will be overlapped as there is a SP and IGP in the district, Singh said that there was no question of overlapping as the area of operation will be clearly divided. The Police Commissioner will directly report to DGP while the SP and IGP will head the district and Western Range minus the commissionerate area.

Additional SP R Ramesh, who took charge as the new DCP two days ago, was present on the occasion. Soon after taking charge, Singh also held a meeting of all the police officers.
Seemanth Kumar Singh who served as the SP of Dakshina Kannada between December 22, 2000 and February 2, 2004, has also served as Probationary SP in Belgaum, ASP in Bhatkal, SP in Kodagu, Bijapur, Mandya, Kolar and Bellary before taking charge in Mangalore as the first police commissioner. He also served as DySP in CBI and DCP (Traffic) in Bangalore. The 1996-batch IPS officer is a native of Jharkhand.

Areas of operation

As many as 17 police stations including, Mangalore City South (Pandeshwar), North (Bunder), East (Kadri), Rural (Kankanadi), Bajpe, Mulky, Konaje, Urva, Barke, Kavoor, Panambur, Surathkal, Mulky, Traffic East and Traffic West will come under the jurisdiction of the new commissionerate and all the 17 police stations will be headed by Police Inspectors. At present, a number of stations are headed by Police Sub Inspectors.

It will also have 3 Deputy Commissioners of Police — DCP (Law & Order), DCP (Crime), DCP (City Armed Reserve) and 4 Assistant Commissioners of Police — ACP (City Crime Branch), ACP (Traffic), ACP (Immigration) and ACP (Special branch). Two more Traffic police stations will also come up in Ullal and Panambur. The police strength is also expected to go up to 800 which means that each police station would have a police strength of about 70 from the existing 40 to 45 personnel. However, it will be done in phases.

Long pending dream

The proposal for Mangalore police commissionerate was on cards ever since the district witnessed communal riots in 1998. However, the proposal remained only on paper untill the district witnessed another communal violence and curfew in 2006 when the then Home Minister M P Prakash almost gave his nod for the commissionerate. But nothing happened. Meanwhile, the present Home Minister Dr V S Acharya announced that the Commissionerate would be a reality on August 15, 2009, which was later postponed to November 1, 2009. Finally, the government announced the commissionerate on January 26, 2010 and IGP (Western Range) Gopal B Hosur was given the additional charge of the commissioner.