Amid the political turmoil in the state, Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government on Wednesday appointed Vivek Phansalkar as the next Mumbai police commissioner. He will take charge on Thursday as the current city police chief, Sanjay Pandey, is retiring that day.
The state home department issued an order in the evening, declaring the name of Phansalkar, a 1989-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer.
By the same order, the government has given additional charge of Phansalkar’s current position – managing director of the Maharashtra Police Housing and Welfare Corporation – to Archan Tyagi, the joint managing director of the corporation.
Sources in the home department said the police establishment board met on Tuesday and recommended three names for appointment to the post of city police commissioner.
Apart from Phansalkar, the other two names were Sandeep Bishnoi, a 1989-batch IPS officer who is presently the director general of Legal and Technical, and Jaijeet Singh, who is due for promotion to the post of director general and is currently posted as the Thane commissioner of police. Singh, a 1990-batch IPS officer, has already worked as chief of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and as additional director general of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB).
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Before working with the Police Housing and Welfare Corporation, Phansalkar was the ATS chief when he played an important role in blocking several websites linked to Islamic State (IS).
His team counselled several youths who were radicalised by the banned terrorist group to leave the country to join IS. Under his supervision, the ATS had arrested Rizwan Ahmed and Mohsin Ibrahim Sayyed who had radicalised several youths in Malad’s Malwani and were recently convicted and sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment.
While working as Thane police commissioner, Phansalkar had given special attention to the traffic problems in Thane, Kalyan, and along the Mumbai-Nashik highway and had recommended several new roads.
“He had started rewarding officers whose investigation led to convictions, which also encouraged police officers to learn proper documentation of cases. He had also conducted special drives to trace accused persons who had jumped parole and more than 15 such accused were caught,” a police officer, who worked with Phansalkar in Thane, said.
Phansalkar, who started his career as additional superintendent of police, Akola, has also worked as additional director of the ACB and has handled several sensitive cases like the multi-crore irrigation scam case.
In Mumbai, Phansalkar has worked as the joint commissioner of police, traffic, as well as joint commissioner of police, administration, and is known to have good knowledge about the traffic situation.