IPS officer indicted in Thoothukudi police firing promoted as DGP

Chennai: A senior IPS officer, against whom the Justice (retired) Aruna Jagadeesan Commission recommended action for his role in the 2018 firing on anti-Sterlite protestors in Thoothukudi, has been promoted to the rank of Director General of Police.

Shailesh Kumar Yadav, who was ADGP (Idol Wing), has been promoted as Director General of Police (DGP), according to a government order issued by Home Secretary P Amudha on December 28, 2023. Yadav will now head the Idol Wing as DGP.

The 1993-batch IPS officer was serving as Inspector General of Police (South) when police firing at anti-Sterlite protestors on May 22, 2018, killed 13 people.

After the police firing led to a major controversy, Yadav was shifted to Chennai and was later promoted as ADGP. In February this year, he was posted as ADGP (Idol Wing).

The promotion to Yadav has been granted despite the commission appointed by the then AIADMK government recommending action against the officer. The government had told the Madras High Court earlier this year that explanations given by Yadav, Kumar, and Mahendran were still ‘under examination’.

The Commission recommended action against Yadav, DIG C Kapil Kumar, and P Mahendran, Thoothukudi SP, and 14 others for their “acts of commission and omission departmentally without prejudice to launching criminal action.”

The retired justice had passed stinging remarks on Mahendran, the SP, and Tirunelveli SP Arun Sakthi Kumar, accusing them of “playing truant” till 1.15 pm leaving the IG and DIG, who were neither fluent in Tamil, nor aware of the topography of the area, alone.

“There is no material on record to show that it was only to deal with a militant crowd of protesters that the opening of fire was resorted to and as a matter of fact groups of people here and there had assembled presumably in their anxiety to know about the fate that had befallen them. As a matter of fact, it is not even the version of police,” she wrote.

Sterlite Copper was closed a week after the anti-Sterlite protests turned violent on May 22, 2018, resulting in the death of 13 civilians in police firing.

The then AIADMK government closed down the plant, forcing India to import copper from other countries like China.