CHENNAI: There must have been times in Tamil Nadu when some per cent of the common public did not know who was heading the state police. It is hard to deny the fact that Sylendra Babu is one of the most famous director generals of police in the state. In the last two years as the DGP of the state, Sylendra Babu was at the receiving end not just for acclaims but also criticisms.
Major riots broke out in Kallakurichi on August 2022 after a school student allegedly killed herself; the police department was taunted after a spree of custodial deaths that rocked the assembly floor in the state; deaths due to illegal liquor in Villupuram and Kancheepuram district; and recently the allegations against ASP Balveer Singh for torturing suspects - were some of the major issues Sylendra Babu faced as the DGP of the state.
He was also often accused of working on the government’s directives when people were arrested under charges of rumour and spreading hatred through social media posts against the present regime. However, unlike some police officers who try to cover the issues with denial, Sylendra Babu maintained transparency and was in the forefront at the crime spots and promising fair investigations. Several sensitive cases in which the state police were accused were quickly transferred to CBCID on grounds of transparency.
The state police recorded the highest drug seizures in the state in the last two years. Born on June 5, 1962, at Kuzhithurai village in Kanyakumari district, Babu belonged to the 1987 batch of IPS. Sylendra Babu received the Prime Minister’s medal for swimming and saving 18 people from a lake in Sivaganga in 1997. He also received CM’s medal for gallantry for an armed encounter with Nazalites in 1993 and for arresting elephant poachers in an armed shootout in 2000.
C Sylendra Babu is scheduled to hang his boots on June 30.