CHENNAI: Son of a police officer and grandson of a personnel who served in the force during the British era, ADGP AK Viswanathan (52), a 1990-batch IPS officer, was appointed as the new police chief for the capital Chennai.
A native of Erode, Viswanathan’s tryst with Chennai goes back to the decades when he was a student at Loyola College. After clearing the civil service examination and joining the force the next year, he was first posted as Assistant Superintendent of Police in Dharmapuri in 1992. The first posting as SP was in Madurai, between 1995 and 1998, before he was moved to the Special Branch till 2001. Viswanathan subsequently spent over six years in the CBI on deputation.
He was DIG (intelligence) between 2006 and 2008, and was then made the Additional Commissioner (Law and Order) of Chennai city police. For over three years, Viswanathan was the city Police Commissioner of Coimbatore, and was the additional commandant of Home Guards.