VISAKHAPATNAM: T Yoganand will take charge as the new police chief of Visakhapatnam city. The Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), Intelligence, has been promoted and will succeed senior IPS officer Amit Garg who has been posted as IG (logistics). In a major reshuffule in recent times, the entire top brass of the police department in North Coastal Andhra Pradesh has been replaced with new faces.
DIG Visakhapatnam range A Ravichandra has been transferred on promotion and posted as IG (Training-2) and will be replaced by Ch Srikanth who has been working as the superintendent of police (SP), Prakasam. Visakhapatnam DCP (law and order) CM Thrivikrama Varma will take over as SP of Prakasam. Similarly, Srikakulam SP AS Khan has been promoted and appointed as joint commissioner of police for Visakhapatnam city.
J Brahma Reddy who has been working as SP CID, will be the new SP of Srikakulam. His Vizianagaram counterpart will be LKV Ranga Rao who was earlier working as DCP (law and order) in Vijayawada city.
CID SP Rahul Dev Sharma will be the SP of Visakhapatnam rural. Along with a few other IPS officers, Grewal Nav Deep Singh and Koya Praveen, have been asked to report at the Police Headquarters of Andhra Pradesh in Hyderabad for further postings.
Though these transfers were pending for a long time now, the political analysts observed the exercise as a preparation for the urban local body elections which are expected to be held in the next six months.
“It is a known fact that majority of the MLAs in Visakhapatnam city had differences with Amit Garg and they often lodged complaints with the Chief Minister during his visits to the city, stating that the city police chief was not obliging them during police postings and also certain cases,” sources said.