Sixty-seven more officers from local police stations were placed under suspension on Friday after the 41 — attached to the Local Armed (LA) Division — were suspended for not reporting for bandobast duty during Ganpati immersion day that concluded on Wednesday.
Also, 19 more police officers from the LA Division are likely to be suspended after their suspension recommendations are approved by the city police commissionerate.
“According to an existing rule, policemen recruited before June 1, 1993 can be suspended by the city police headquarters only. We have sent their suspension recommendations to the higher ups,” said additional CP (LA Division) Vijay Chavan, refusing to elaborate further. According to an officer, the policemen — from the rank of a constable to assistant sub-inspector (ASI) — had been absent without intimation to their seniors. While some of them had not been reporting to work for a month, some had been absent for a week, while others reported to work intermittently. “Salaries of some of the policemen were also stopped when we decided to follow the simple ‘no work, no pay’ rule. They had gone too far and needed to be taught a lesson,” the officer said.
When contacted, joint CP (administration) Hemant Nagrale confirmed that he had received the suspension recommendations of the 19 LA Division officials. “We have
forwarded their reports to the police commissioner’s office, which will soon take a decision to suspend them.” Joint CP (law and order) Sadanand Date said, “A total of 108 policemen have been placed under suspension and may increase further as we process the default reports.”