MUMBAI: The new Mumbai Police Commissioner D. Shivanandan, who took over from outgoing city police chief Hasan Ghafour on Sunday, yesterday said that his top priority on his agenda would be of combating terrorism.
In an informal talk with the media, the police chief said that to achieve his goal of controlling terror, he would work with an “integrated approach” by collectively utilizing the local police, armed units, Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Crime Branch of Mumbai police besides specialized teams.
“The policy that I would adopt in this functioning is — “promise less, deliver more. We have to work as teams,” he said. Shivanandan, an IPS officer holding the rank of the additional director general of police, returned to Mumbai after a gap of eight years when he was the joint commissioner of police (crime) and had cracked the backbone of the underworld mafia.
“Time and again it has been stressed that for a commercial capital like Mumbai, terrorism is a major challenge. Yes, it is a priority and we have to keep the city safe. I would do whatever is needed to keep the city safe,” Shivanandan said pointing out that the metropolis has repeatedly faced terror attacks in the past including the recent serial bomb blasts and other blasts on suburban trains, and the Mumbai terror attacks.
Spelling out his strategy to combat terror, Shivanandan said that new modern weapons are being acquired. Besides, the intelligence gathering machinery is also being strengthened. “We have to integrate the intelligence-gathering effort by collecting information from local level to sharing information from other agencies (referring to Intelligence Bureau and Research & Analysis Wing), we have to adopt an integrated approach. Moreover, our people who are at the streets are the best intelligence gatherers. They have to be heard.”
Meanwhile, in another development, the Congress party-led Democratic Front government in the state had to eat a humble pie, after it conceded defeat to the opposition Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party combine after it was to forced to revert its order of relieving Nashik Police Commissioner Vishnu Dev Mishra and sending him on deputation to the federal government.
Citizens, industrialists and social workers of Nashik led by SS-BJP leaders had launched an agitation two days ago against the removal of Mishra and blocked highway traffic.
