Thiruvananthapuram: Close on the heels of a series of controversies plaguing the police force in the state, a group of IPS officers held a parallel meeting, signalling a rift within the IPS association.
After a demand to hold a meeting of the IPS Association was rejected at a high-level police meeting, the parallel meeting was held under the leadership of ADGP Tomin Thachankary.
Recently, the issue of policemen doing menial jobs at the houses of senior police officers had snowballed into a big controversy after the daughter of ADGP Sudesh Kumar assaulted a police driver.
Those who attended the parallel meeting were critical of the association since it didn't come out in the support of its members. Tomin Thachankary and Sudesh Kumar are from the same IPS batch -- 1987.
The first outburst happened at a gathering held after the meeting called by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan at the police headquarters on Tuesday. Even after the chief minister left, the meeting continued under the leadership of police chief Loknath Behera.
During the meeting, Thachankary came up with a demand to hold an immediate meeting of the IPS Association. He complained that despite reports blaming IPS officers appearing in media, the association had failed to defend them. No action was take despite people claiming to be representatives of barbers, gardeners and camp followers appeared on TV channels and levelled allegations, he said.
Junior officers like Rajul R Nair, Harishankar and Jaynath too raised the same issue. However, former secretary IG Manoj Abraham said that the association is a disciplined organisation and should not resort to a public spat. Behera then intervened and wound up the meeting.
During lunch break, Behera and other senior police officers told the cops who were planning the parallel meeting that they should not meet then since it could be seen as a disagreement to the speech of the chief minister.
Later in the evening, when the farewell function of SP P N Unnirajan and others was over at the police headquarters, Thachankary asked all IPS officers to stay back. However, a few senior cops including DGPs A Hemachandran and Mohammed Yasin and ADGP R Sreelekha left.
During the meeting, Thachankary said that the IPS Association is lifeless and called for an immediate meeting to draw up a code of conduct and register it. The draft of the code was distributed by Rahul Nair. It was decided to hand over a letter seeking to hold the meeting of the association on July 5 to association secretary P Prakash, who is the Thiruvananthapuram city police commissioner. ADGP Sudesh Kumar didn't take part in both the meetings.
25 attended parallel meeting
Thiruvananthapuram: More than 25 IPS officers attended the meeting called by Tomin Thachankary. However, IPS Association secretary P Prakash and former secretary Manoj Abraham did not take part in the meeting. Last year, when Tomin Thachankary was the ADGP at the police headquarters, he had got eight junior IPS officers to submit a letter seeking a meeting of the association twice. But no meeting was held. Later, secretary Manoj Abraham resigned. Behera then nominated Hemachandran as president and Prakash as secretary. But they too didn't convene a meeting.