Amaraesh Pujari, IPS officer who told Jaya she would be convicted, retires

CHENNAI: DGP Amaraesh Pujari, known for his courage and integrity in standing up to power and refusing to adhere to the culture of sycophancy, and Abhash Kumar, the DGP of Fire and Rescue Services, retired on Friday.

Pujari, the then IG of Intelligence, penned a prophetic missive to the indomitable J Jayalalithaa, the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, proclaiming that the Bengaluru court’s gavel would strike, sealing her fate in the Rs 66 crore disproportionate assets case.

Not accustomed to such candour, the Iron Lady swiftly exiled him to the Police Academy. But as fate would have it, within a week of his declaration, Jayalalithaa had to step into jail.

“Not everyone would have the guts to say something like this to Jaya. Pujari was different and believed in telling the truth to the people who mattered,” noted a retired policeman who had worked with him.

Pujari, an IPS officer belonging to the 1991 batch, also foresaw the then President Pranab Mukherjee’s unscheduled visit to the house of ailing DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, even as the President had been invited by then CM Jayalalithaa for a government function. “The visit to Karunanidhi’s house was not in the President's schedule till the last minute. But Pujari had predicted it and informed Jaya about it,” another old timer recalled.

In addition to heading various state police units and serving as the Commissioner of Police in Coimbatore, the veteran cop also had stints in the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB), Bureau of Immigration, and CB-CID. Before his transfer as Chief Vigilance Officer of Tamil Nadu Newsprints and Papers Ltd, from where he retired, he served as the head of Tamil Nadu Prisons.