Hemant Nagrale, a 1987-batch IPS officer, has been appointed as the new Director General of Police of Maharashtra. He will succeed incumbent Subodh Jaiswal, who has now been appointed as Director General of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). Nagrale has been given additional charge of DGP besides his current position as DG-Technical and Legal. On Thursday, he assumed charge of the new post at the DGP office in south Mumbai.
Before being appointed as DG-Technical and Legal, Nagrale served as Police Commissioner of Navi Mumbai from May 2016 to July 2018. The top cop has also served in various capacities in the state departments and Mumbai Police. He was the joint commissioner of police-administration in Mumbai Police. Nagrale also held additional charge as Commissioner of Police-Mumbai for a brief period in 2014. He was special inspector general-administration in the Director General office and special inspector general at Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL).
Nagrale also served as SP and DIG in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for over 4 years from March 1998 to September 2002. Among some of the high-profile cases that he handled there were the Ketan Parekh Scam of Rs 130 crore, the Harshad Mehta scam involving Rs 400 crore and Madhaopura Cooperative Bank Scam of Rs 1,800 crore.
The 1987-batch IPS officer is also hailed for his actions during the Mumbai terror attack in 2008. When the strike happened, Nagrale, who was posted at MSEDCL, entered Hotel Taj Mahal Palace along with four other policemen and helped the injured and dead to be shifted to nearby hospitals, according to PTI. After helping the injured, he went on the lookout for suspicious objects and spotted an RDX (explosive) bag. The report said that Nagrale personally removed the RDX bag to a safer place and then called the bomb disposal squad.
