Andhra Pradesh | Top cops caught in crossfire
Two years on, senior IPS officers remain sidelined as politics and policing collide in Andhra Pradesh
What goes around comes around. It’s a lesson several senior police officers in Andhra Pradesh have learned, much to their discomfiture. Nearly two years have passed since the change of guard in the state, and eight IPS officers still find themselves off the ‘active duty’ list—five under prolonged suspension (including two of DGP rank), while three still await posting.
What goes around comes around. It’s a lesson several senior police officers in Andhra Pradesh have learned, much to their discomfiture. Nearly two years have passed since the change of guard in the state, and eight IPS officers still find themselves off the ‘active duty’ list—five under prolonged suspension (including two of DGP rank), while three still await posting.
Weeks after the Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP) took charge in mid-2024, 23 officers were placed on the ‘waiting for posting’ list, while the new government reviewed their controversial roles during the previous YSR Congress regime. Some of them were allotted work at some point. As for the others, TDP insiders frame the actions as a ‘correction’ for their alleged excesses. The Opposition YSRCP, though, says the government is being vindictive, and accuses it of demoralising the All India Services corps.
MULTIPLE ALLEGATIONS
The Naidu government has turned the screws on some of the top officers, slapping a number of cases against them. Senior IPS officers such as P. Sitharama Anjaneyulu, ex-CM Jagan Mohan Reddy’s intelligence chief, and N. Sanjay, the state CID head when Naidu was arrested in 2023 in the alleged skill development project scam, were in remand for some time last year. They are out on bail now, but face action in a number of cases.
Another former state CID chief, P.V. Sunil Kumar, is facing an investigation in a 2021 case involving the alleged custodial torture of then rebel YSRCP MP and current Telugu Desam MLA and deputy speaker, Raghu Rama Krishna Raju. In February, the government extended his suspension till June 30, the day he superannuates. Anjaneyulu, due to retire in August, could face a similar fate; his April 2025 incarceration was related to a controversial ‘illegal’ arrest of a model-actress and her parents and alleged irregularities in evaluations in a public service examination.
So, is Naidu justified in his actions against the IPS men? A former state DGP doesn’t mince words while also pointing out that elected governments retain their prerogative to withhold postings. “Political pressure is always there, but as IPS officers we must uphold the dignity and authority of the office,” he says. Serving officers point to a more workday consequence to the case of their missing colleagues: a stretched force, which has to absorb the additional workload.
