Mangaluru: Encounter specialist Dr. B R Ravikante Gowda has been appointed as Dakshina Kannada Superintendent of Police with immediate effect on January 20. He is presently serving as the SP of Belagavi district.

Meanwhile, C H Sudhir Kumar Reddy, the present SP of Dakshina Kannada has been transferred and posted as the SP of Belagavi district until further orders.

Son of well-known short story writer Besagarahalli Ramanna, B R Ravikanthe Gowda, is also a poet and a singer.

B R Ravikanthe Gowda is acknowledged in police circles as “non-communal and an encounter specialist.” His dare-devil act of killing three rowdies in Bangalore some years ago, his success in thwarting simmering communal tensions and the guts he showed in raiding the treacherous hooch dens in Hubli-Dharwad, has earned him the sobriquet “Mandyada Huli” (Tiger). Gowda also nabbed underworld don Sudhir Prabhu in Mysore.