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N Sathiya Moorthy in Chennai
In a surprising move on Sunday, the Tamil Nadu government transferred the controversial Chennai City Police Commissioner K Muthukaruppan.
The transfer orders come just two days after the transfer of the equally controversial Chennai Corporation Commissioner J T Acharyalu.
Acharyalu as the Chennai Corporation Commissioner was the complainant in the 'flyover scam case', for which Karunanidhi was arrested.
The move is seen as a reconciliatory political message to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government, pending the possibility of an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Madras high court verdict acquitting All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader J Jayalalithaa in three corruption cases last week.
Just hours after Muthukaruppan's transfer as Commandant of the State Armed Police Force at Tiruchi was announced, K Vijayakumar, the high-profile Inspector-General of Police attached to the Special Task Force, hunting forest brigand Veerappan, took charge as the Chennai police commissioner.
The transfer order was announced after Union Minister of State for Home I D Swami had reiterated the Centre's resolve to seek the transfer of Muthukaruppan and two other police officials, first mooted after the controversial arrest of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president and former chief minister M Karunanidhi on July 1.
Vijayakumar is a known loyalist of Jayalalithaa from his days as her security boss when she was chief minister for five full years from 1991.
Vijayakumar was specially appointed as the head of STF after she took over as chief minister of Tamil Nadu in May this year.
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