Likely to have one of the longest tenures: Four years and five months

Bengaluru: Praveen Sood, a 1986 batch IPS officer, took charge as the new Director General and Inspector General of Police (DG&IGP) of Karnataka yesterday, following the retirement of incumbent Neelamani N. Raju.

The appointment of Sood has been made overruling the seniority Ashit Mohan Prasad, a 1985 batch IPS officer, another frontrunner for the post. Prasad who will retire in October 2020, would have had a very short tenure, thus prompting the State Government to appoint Sood as DG&IGP, sources in the Government said.

 Praveen Sood, born in May 1964, is likely to have one of the longest tenures – four years, five months, retiring in May 2024. He has earlier headed the Police Computer Wing modernising the Police force, has been Commissioner of Mysuru and Bengaluru, and helmed CID, among other key posts.

Hailing from Himachal Pradesh, he is an alumni of IIT Delhi and holds a B.Tech degree in civil engineering. Three senior Director General of Police rank officers – the outgoing DG and IGP Neelamani N. Raju, M.N. Reddi and Raghavendra Auradkar retired from service on Friday. 

Outgoing DG-IGP Neelamani Raju, the first woman top brass heading the State Police handed over the charge to Sood after the closing hours. “We are looking forward to the team work. One lakh Policemen will serve 6.5 crore people of the State. Not only do we have to look after the requirements of the public, but we also have to look after the requirements of the Police force. Unless we take care of them, they will not be able to take care of the public,” Sood said. 

“Policing will become citizen-centric. We should be able to deliver what the common man demands. We have to look into serving the citizens manually and technologically. With a large magnitude of issues facing us, we can’t go on hiring Policemen endlessly. We have to leverage technology or policing. Services will be delivered to the citizens with the help of technology,” he said.