Officer of Karunanidhi 'midnight arrest' fame to retire

CHENNAI: IPS officer and former Chennai police commissioner K Muthukaruppan, who has as many feathers to his cap as he does controversies to his name, retires from service on Saturday. He will hang up his boots, by his choice, without a ceremonial farewell parade.
Muthukaruppan found himself in the spotlight when, as commissioner, police carried out the midnight arrest of former chief minister M Karunanidhi in 2001.The officer, who had been on suspension for more than four years, had to battle the odds to make it to the position of DGP, home guard and civil defence.
The IPS officer's family came to the state as refugees from Burma after World War II when he was in Class 5. After his schooling in Ramanathapuram, he moved to Chennai where he completed a master's in English at MCC.
Muthukaruppan says he took the civil services examination to support his family and being an IPS officer was not his ambition. "After I became an IPS officer, I brought my father Kalimuthu to the city from the Andamans, where he worked in a betel leaf plantation for more than 18 years," the DGP said.
He joined in the service in 1980 as assistant superintendent of police, Karur, before being transferred to Pudukottai and Nilgris as superintendent of police.
"Few in the police force knew about me," Muthukaruppan said. "When I was deputy commissioner in charge of airport security, I introduced baggage scanner machines and bomb-detecting robots in the airports of all four metros, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. We specified the specs for the scanners and ordered them from Electronics Corporation of India in then Calcutta at a cost of 25 lakh each."
Before being posted in Chennai as joint commissioner of police, crime wing, in 1995, Muthukaruppan was commandant in Tihar jail. Recalling with a laugh how a police sub-inspector from Tamil Nadu, assigned to procure firewood for cooking, asked a shopkeeper to give for 'Ek tonne ladki' (woman) instead of 'Ek tonne lakdi'(firewood), Muthukaruppan said the incident got him thinking. "When I was posted in the armed police wing in the state, we entered a joint venture with IOC for cooking gas cylinders for police canteens in the state," he said.
As deputy inspector general of police, technical services, the officer introduced Fingerprint Analysis and Criminal Tracking System (FACTS), which is still used by the State Crime Records Bureau. As DIG, Coimbatore, he nabbed LTTE operative Vicky, who was involved in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.
Now Muthukaruppan is looking forward to retirement. "I am happy to retire after serving the police force with dedication," he said.