The Karnataka Government has appointed senior IPS officer Praveen Sood as the state’s Director General of Police (DGP) on Saturday.
Praveen Sood is an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the 1986 batch belonging to the Karnataka cadre. In his previous posting, he was the Director General of Police (Criminal Investigation Department).
He has earlier served as the Police Commissioner of Bengaluru.
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As a Joint Commissioner of Police (JCP) Traffic, he is known to have taken efforts to reduce the number of road accidents on the roads of Bengaluru.
He has taken over from Neelamani Raju who was the first woman DGP of the state.
He is expected to be the longest serving police chief of the state and will have a tenure till May 2024.
The Government overlooked the seniority rule and appointed Sood.
1985 batch IPS officer AM Prasad, who is currently the DGP (Internal Security Division) is the senior most officer in the state.
It has been reported that he was overlooked as he was involved in the suicide case of DySp MK Ganapathi. He was given a clean chit later though.
The government may have also overlooked his appointed as the state police chief as he is expected to retire in another nine months.
Sood will have new and old challenges before him as he has taken over and heads the police department.
Karnataka is an IT power and with this comes new challenges in the form of cyber crimes and the state police can establish a modern cyber policing hub and set an example for the rest of the country to follow.
Deteriorating law and order situation in Bengaluru and Mangluru will also be a challenge for the new police chief.