Former top cop Ribeiro praises woman IPS officer for standing up to Ajit Pawar

Mumbai, Sep 12 (PTI) Former Mumbai police commissioner Julio Ribeiro on Friday praised IPS officer Anjana Krishna for standing her ground when Maharashtra deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar admonished her for taking action against illegal soil excavation.

Ribeiro, 96, who has also served as Director General of Punjab Police, was speaking at the launch of the book "The Brahmastra Unleashed", penned by D Sivanandhan, a former Maharashtra DGP as well as Mumbai police commissioner.

"I was very happy to read the other day about a young girl....she had been clever enough to record what a deputy chief minister tried to bully her into doing," said Ribeiro, without naming either Pawar or Krishna.

This is very common, he noted.

"He is not the only one who does this, and I am going to write an article on this and mention a few other people who tried (it), but we have to stand up to this, and this girl has done it," Ribeiro said.

"There will be a lot of caution now, not only from this deputy chief minister, but from other deputy chief ministers and chief ministers also, that they should not try to bully the police or government officials....," he added.

"You have legislated, you have brought it into law, and then you ask us not to enforce those laws....we have enough laws, we do not need new ones, but we need enforcement," Ribeiro said.

Ribeiro also recalled that as the first police commissioner of Thane, he had taken action against bootleggers.

"I took some severe action....the (local) MLA was very close to the chief minister, he came to see me and said that's enough, now you have enforced enough, now you don't enforce anymore," Ribeiro recollected.

He told the MLA categorically that as long as the law against bootlegging was there, he was going to enforce the same, the former top cop said.

"If you don't like it, at least take it off the statute book," he said, adding that the chief minister must have got the right message as he never spoke to Ribeiro about the issue.

A viral video last week showed Ajit Pawar rebuking Anjana Krishna, sub-divisional police officer, Karmala, over phone, when she was taking action against illegal murrum soil excavation in Solapur district. Pawar later claimed he did not want to interfere but was trying to de-escalate a tense situation.

Praising D Sivanandhan, Ribeiro said he was a gem of the Indian Police Service and one of the "great police officers we have seen in Bombay".

"After finishing with crime and criminals, he is feeding 15,000 hungry children every day. I respect him more for that, for bothering about others, and that is what every police officer should do. He works for the people," Ribeiro said.

Speaking at the function, Sivanandhan said he wanted to write a book so that there would be a record of what exactly happened during his stint in Mumbai.

"The book is all about the police operations and how successfully police eliminated the root of the mafia from Mumbai city. This book is about the Mumbai Police and not about Sivanandhan," he said.

Mumbai police commissioner Deven Bharti, Maharashtra DGP Rashmi Shukla, former IPS officials M N Singh, Satish Sahney and V Balchandran were present on the occasion, among others. PTI DC KRK