Among uniformed personnel, the Tamil Nadu police are often compared with the Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, London, for professional competency. There is no particular case that warrants the comparison, but senior police officers say the stature took shape over time. The Tamil Nadu police gained accolades by solving complicated or clueless cases through meticulous investigation, done mostly by the Crime Branch-CID. Serving and former police officers say a fine blend of conventional and modern policing has positioned Tamil Nadu ahead of others and the comparison with the Scotland Yard is obsolete and irrelevant, given the number of cases, police-public ratio, and the rate of detection/conviction.
Former Director-General of Police (DGP) K. Ramanujam, who also headed the State Intelligence, recalls that the cracking of sensational cases, such as the counterfeit currency case of the 1960s or the ‘vesa oosi’ (poisoned syringe) killings of 1970s, gave rise to the comparison. “Even when I joined service, in the last century, I used to hear people say ‘T.N. police is next only to Scotland Yard.’ Incidentally, Scotland Yard is not a mere detective unit. The term refers to London Metropolitan Police, which is one of the 43 police forces in England and Wales. It had its headquarters in a building called Scotland Yard and came to be referred to by that name,” he says.
