New Delhi: In a major reorganisation of the Delhi Police brass, govt on Wednesday appointed new chiefs of the law & order, crime and traffic divisions in the city. The restructuring saw senior IPS officers Neeraj Thakur and Devesh Chandra Srivastava taking over the two zones of law and order. Hargobinder Singh Dhaliwal was appointed the new head of the city’s crime division and Manish Agarwal the new traffic chief.Ajay Chaudhry has been given charge of the protective security division while Atul Katiyar will be the new chief of the vigilance unit. K Jagdesan has been moved as special CP (intelligence) and Vijay Kumar has been given additional charge of transport division besides his portfolio of Reserve Armed Police, as per an order issued by LG T S Sandhu on the recommendation of Police Establishment Board, which is headed by top cop Satish Golchha.The reshuffle comes amid the transfer of law and order chief Ravindra Singh Yadav as DGP of Andaman and Nicobar upon completion of his two-year tenure. Yadav had been handling the charge of both the zones after the Zone I chief, Madhup Tiwari, was transferred to Arunachal Pradesh 10 days ago. Yadav is credited with effectively managing the law and order in Trans-Yamuna areas and outer Delhi localities like Alipur and Bawana, which are home to several criminal gangs. During his tenure, the local police cracked several complex cases, including the witness Rachna Yadav’s murder.Yadav will replace Dhaliwal who was holding the charge of DGP Andaman but was posted to Delhi on Wednesday morning. A 1997-batch officer, Dhaliwal has been given the charge of the crucial crime unit in the backdrop of his previous stint in the special cell in Delhi during which the unit cracked high profile cases, including that of Sidhu Moose Wala murder, and arrested most wanted gangster Deep Boxer from Mexico. He will be expected to crack down on organised gangs.1995-batch IPS officer Srivastava, who was overseeing crime branch, will replace Yadav as special CP of Zone I, which has areas of north, northwest, central and east Delhi. Known to be a no-nonsense officer, Srivastava is expected to control the crime situation in northeast Delhi areas. 1994-batch officer Thakur, considered a hard taskmaster, will head Zone II which has key areas from south, west and Lutyens’ Delhi.Agarwal, a 1996-batch officer, will be stepping into a crucial turf with the police chief expecting him to streamline traffic situations in the city and handle the arrangements during the upcoming Indo-Africa summit. He was posted as special CP (intelligence). His batchmate, Chaudhry, will also be handling the security arrangement during the summit while generally revamping the VIP security wing responsible for protecting dignitaries and installations.1995-batch officer David Lalrinsanga will continue to hold the post of special CP (operations, communications & PCR) and special unit for northeast residents and has now been given the additional charge of special unit for women and children.All these new officers, currently in the rank of special commissioners, have been asked to take charge with immediate effect and roll out their plan of action. Police chief Golchha is likely to conduct a review meeting next week, sources said. A few joint commissioner-rank officials may also be reshuffled in the coming week.
