A month and a half before Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora’s retirement, the Delhi government’s Home Department has issued a notification informing that the Commissioner will be leaving office on July 31, it is learnt.
Arora, who is a 1988-batch IPS officer from the Tamil Nadu cadre, took charge of the Police Commissioner’s office in August 2022.
With Arora’s retirement confirmed, police sources said that a call on his successor will be taken later. Director General of Prisons Satish Golcha (1992-batch IPS AGMUT cadre) and CISF Special Director General Praveen Ranjan (1993-batch IPS AGMUT cadre) are among the other senior officers in the force.
However, sources have pointed out that the last two Police Commissioners, including Arora, have not been from the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre. The previous commissioner, Rakesh Asthana, was from the Gujarat cadre.
Police Commissioner Arora’s career has spanned over four decades.
During his time in the Tamil Nadu Police, he was the Superintendent of Police (SP) of the Special Task Force and carried out operations against forest brigand Veerappan in the sandalwood forests of the state.
In 2004, the sandalwood smuggler was killed in a shootout by Arora’s team, which was led by famed IPS officer K Vijay Kumar. Arora would earn the CM’s Gallantry Medal for Bravery and Heroic Action for his role.
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His work in Tamil Nadu would also earn him a Police Medal for meritorious service in 2004.
Ten years later, he would be awarded the President’s Police Medal for distinguished service. He was also part of the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Kosovo, for which he earned a UN Peacekeeping medal.
He went on to serve as the Director General of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Director General of the Sashastra Seema Bal from 2021 to 2022.
