Exclusive Interview with IGP Ashit M Prasad

Mangalore: Special Operation Force to Eliminate Rowdyism and Extortion

Aug 13, 2007

Mangalore has just started growing economically; at the same time, the security aspect needs to be paid attention to substantially in order to maintain peace in the society and provide the people who are responsible for the growth of the city with security.

Ashit Mohan Prasad recently took over as Inspector General of Police, Western range which comprises of Chikmagalur, Udupi, Karwar and Mangalore (Dakshina Kannada) districts. He is not new to Mangalore, since he had served as district's superintendent of police about a decade ago.

He is the supreme authority for the police in above mentioned four districts. But a huge challenge lies ahead of him. On the one side is the growing Naxal problemsin the region of Malnad and on the other side the rising rate of rowdyism and extortion racket.

Editor-in-chief of Daijiworld.com Walter Nandalike took the opportunity to meet him his office recently to know about him and more importantly his action plans to curb the extortion and Naxal issues.

Hailing from Bihar, Prasad studied in the Jesuit School, Hazaribagh (now in Jharkand). A former Economics lecturer of Delhi University, Ashit M Prasad IPS, although holding a topmost position in the police hierarchy in the region, is a down-to-earth, polite and cool person. He has been widely recognized for his intelligence abilities.

Having opted for the Karnataka cadre of the IPS, he began his police career as probationary ASP in Hunsur and served as SP in districts like Tumkur, DK, Mysore, Chamarajanagar. Later he was promoted as DCP of Bangalore city.

Before taking charge in Jammu & Kashmir as DCP two years ago, he served in Government of India's internal security of the home ministry in New Delhi.

"Happy to be back in Mangalore as IG; this is a familiar territory for me and indeed there is a challenging mission on my shoulders," says Prasad, with a smile.

Rowdyism and extortion in and around the city

"Rowdyism and extortion by the underworld gangs have been around in Mangalore for than two decades. Most of the gangsters have been eliminated over the period of time in their own gang-wars. District anti-rowdy squad was constituted by me when I was superintendent of police in Mangalore in 1994, with a view to controlling  the rowdy menace, and it made a large contribution in controlling rowdyism, extortion etc," narrated Prasad.

"Now I am going to re-constitute the district anti-rowdy squad. Though we have not named the squad, it will be something like 'Special Operation Group' to eliminate rowdyism and extortion," he added, exuding confidence.

"The recent Subba Rao murder case is linked to extortion and we have specific clues about it, and we are very sure to reach the culprit within a very few days,"  he further says.

However, he made a special appeal to the people of the region through daijiworld.com, that whoever is affected by rowdyism and extortion cases in the past or now, should icontact the police with full information.

He assured that utmost confidentiality would be maintained by the police force to protect the informers. Also he assured that stringent action would be taken to eliminate such crime.

About Naxal problems:

In Prasad's words, Naxalism poses a great challenge to the Malnad area as well as to the police force. Naxals constitute a threat to the society.

About 25-30 villages in the Malnad area have been identified as being under the influ