Thursday, 30 November 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The outgoing director general of police Ashok Kumar has set aside the speculations that he will join politics after retirement. In a Press conference held at Police headquarters in Dehradun on Wednesday, a day before his last day as the state’s DGP, he said, “I have not exactly thought what I would do after my retirement but joining politics is not part of the plan. Considering my inclination towards academics, sports and writing, I will possibly do something in these fields. I plan to write more books too. I am not planning to move out of Dehradun and will stay here after retirement,” said Kumar. Talking about the most challenging phase he had to encounter during his tenure, he said that the Covid-19 pandemic and organising Mahakumbh amid the pandemic were the biggest challenges. He said, “These were the times when people were not even ready to pick up the bodies of their loved ones due to the Covid scare. Many were not getting beds, ventilators and oxygen among other necessities. We launched Operation Hausla to make these things accessible to people in need besides helping people to get medicines and ration.” He said that Operation Mukti is another initiative that has hugely impacted thousands of lives, especially child beggars during his tenure. On the question of whether the crime rate in the State has increased or decreased since its inception, DGP said that traditional crimes like theft, robbery and murder have declined with time but the State has witnessed a surge in white collar crimes in recent times like recruitment scams and cyber scams. Talking about his thoughts on whether he considers his tenure as DGP successful, he said, “My primary motto has always been doing people friendly policing and I tried my best to ensure people consider police their friend rather than being scared of them. I think I have achieved this to a great extent with the help of police officials across the State. However, I believe that my work should be judged by the public rather than me.” On the question of why he did not get an extension as DGP, Kumar said that he never asked the government to extend his duties. Talking about the major challenges for the new DGP, he said, “Though considerable work has been done by the police to curb traffic, cyber crime and drug related issues, these will remain major challenges for the authorities in the near future.”
