Senior IPS officer Sanjay Saxena will now head the Mumbai crime branch. The officer was on Wednesday appointed as the joint commissioner of police (crime).
Senior IPS officer Sanjay Saxena will now head the Mumbai crime branch. The officer was on Wednesday appointed as the joint commissioner of police (crime).
The post was previously held by Atulchandra Kulkarni and has been vacant since Mr Kulkarni was made the chief of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS). The 51-year-old officer is from the 1993 IPS batch and was till the new deployment, posted as the Special Inspector General for Force One. Force one, formed after the 26/11 attacks, is considered to be an elite wing entrusted with battling terrorism in the state.
The senior officer has also served as the joint commissioner of police (law and order) for Nagpur and was with the Central Bureau of Investigation on deputation. He has also served as the superintendent of police for Manmad in Nashik district. Mr Saxena also headed the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai police and was deputy commissioner of police for zone 8 in the city.
The post of joint commissioner of police has been under the radar with many high profile and controversial cases including the job of tracing the main accused in the Hema Upadhyay murder case — Vidyadhar Rajbhar. Mr Saxena will also oversee the alleged fake encounter of gangster Sanjay Gadoli by the Gurugram police.
In addition to Mr Saxena being brought to head the crime branch, another 32 officers were transferred. This also includes the transfer of Sangramsingh Nishandar who was brought in as the DCP (operations) on May 20. Less than a month of his new appointment, Mr Nishandar has been transferred to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) as superintendent of police, ACB Thane.
Mr Nishandar has also been appointed as the official spokesperson of Mumbai police, a post that is now vacant.
Mr Nishandar has previously served as the DCP for zone 6, one of the largest zones in the city. He recently started the Police Didi initiative in the eastern suburbs to reduce the rising number of child sexual assault cases.
