Bengaluru: – Former Deputy General of Police (DGP) C. Dinakar (77) passed away in the wee hours of Thursday at Manipal Hospital. According to Police officials, the retired DGP had slipped and fallen inside his bathroom five days ago. Police received information about the same and broke open the bathroom door and rushed him to Manipal Hospital in Bengaluru.
A resident of Indiranagar, he suffered multiple injuries and had also sustained a fracture in one of his legs. Officials said that “age was the factor going against him.” He was undergoing treatment at the hospital and failed to recover.
Last rites were held at Kalpalli Cemetery on Thursday evening.
He was well-known for the role he played in tackling underworld criminal activities in Bengaluru. The former DGP played a crucial role in the Special Task Force (STF) which was formed to rescue thespian Dr. Rajkumar from Veerappan who had held the former hostage for 108 days.
In 2014, a defamation case against Dinakar, lodged by Siddhartha, son-in-law of former External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, was dismissed by a division of the Delhi High Court. The issue was surrounding Dinakar’s book chronicling the capture of late actor by Veerappan. Siddhartha, owner of the Coffee Day Group of Hotels, alleged that parts of the book titled ‘Veerappan’s Prize Catch: Rajkumar,’ were defamatory in nature against him.
Prior to this, in 2003 the DGP was caught in another scuffle when he claimed that then Chief Minister S.M. Krishna and then State Home Minister Mallikarjun Kharge were conspiring to target his credibility.
A surprising omission in the newsitem about the sad demise of former DG& IGP Dinkar is that he had worked as Superintendent of Police, Mysore District during 1972-74 . A no-nonsense supercop, Dinkar was a terror to anti-social elements and their Godfathers (disguised as politicians) throughout his career which often earned him the displeasure of his political bosses which resulted in his being shunted away to relatively insignificant postings. He was my father the late Abdul Karim’s S.P when he was working in the COD(Bangalore) during 1977.
But, it was during the hostage crisis following the abduction of matinee idol Rajkumar by forest brigand Veerappan that the rockhard toughness of Dinkar as an upholder of the rule of law was unveiled to the Govt. and the public of Karnataka when he bravely refused to clear the decks for the swapping of the TADA detainees of the Veerappan gang with Rajkumar as desired by the Govt. of Karnataka. This deservedly earned him an accolade from the Bench of the Supreme Court of India which heard the PIL/SPL filed by father challenging the decision of the Govt. to release the detainees. This has been documented by Dinkar in his book “Rajkumar, Veerappan’s prize catch”. Interestingly, the Book also makes some sensational revelations about furtive deals made by a large number of state and non-state actors as the high voltage drama unfolded over 10 weeks.
Another interesting revelation in the book is the involvement of some cops in the escape of Veerappan when he was arrested by the CID(Forest Cell) in 1986 . Dinkar has referred to the COD probe into the ”escape’ of the bandit in which a senior officer of the rank of SP and Kollegal Circle Police Inspector (named Somshekar Reddy) were reportedly involved. However, the COD report is still kept under wraps and
is gathering dust. Had Veerappan not been let off in 1986, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu might not have seen the bandit’s reign of terror during the 1990s which resulted in the brutal elimination of dozens of police officers. Dinkar’s book is certainly worth reading. RIP Dinkar.
Just one more point to add to the above: Elsewhere in his Book Dinkar points out that the bandit was a ventriloquist’s dummy (phrase mine) in the hands of the Tamil Ultras and the sandalwood mafia who were dictating the terms of the release of the hostages to the Govt. of Karnataka.. How on earth could a semi-literate appreciate the finer points of constitutional jurisprudence and criminal law? Interestingly, all the abductors of Rajkumar and others were acquitted by the trial court in Erode, though the brains behind the abduction were not even booked….