Andhra Pradesh’s former chief police officer, Bayyarapu Prasada Rao, died early Monday morning after suffering a massive cardiac arrest in the United States.
Rao, an IPS officer from 1979, complained of chest pain and wanted to be rushed to a hospital. However, when the ambulance reached a medical facility, he took his last breath in around 1:00 a.m. (IST).
In November 2013, after the resignation of V. Dinesh Reddy, Rao took over the command as DGP (Head of Police). After achieving superannuation, he retired in May 2014.
Before his appointment to the DGP (HoPF), he was Director General of the Anti-Corruption Office. After the division of the state, he was appointed secretary (internal security) in the Ministry of the Interior.
Rao, the son of a retired police officer, was from Guntur County. He held various key positions, including superintendent of the police in the districts of Nizamabad, Karimnagar and Nalgonda as well as police commissioner in Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Visakhapatnam.
He was also vice chairman and general manager of AP State Road Transport Corporation. During his representation by the central government, he was in command of the Central Industrial Security Force in Visakhapatnam and Bhopal.
Rao also served as the DIG of the Eluru and Kurnool divisions, the additional DG (law and order) and the additional DG (provision and logistics).
He was awarded the Indian Police Medal for Merit in 1997 and the President’s Police Medal for Merit in 2006.
After his retirement he worked as a professor of physics and director (training, internships and industry interface) at the Bharat Institutions in Hyderabad. As a PhD student (M.Sc. (Physics)) at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, he wrote a book ‘Word Power to Mind Power’, a unique method for learning and memorizing English vocabulary using visualization and contextualization. He received his PhD from Sri Krishnadevaraya University in 2014 for his research on “Studies on the wave-particle duality of light”.
He is survived by his wife Sowmini, son Vikas, daughter-in-law Soumya, and a grandchild.