Top 10 Woman IPS Officers Who Are Our Inspiration

By Nida Naaz Mar 31, 2023, 17:36 IST

IPS officers have a long history in India, dating back to the nineteenth century. The British government passed the Indian Councils Act in 1861, establishing the modern police bureaucracy known as the Superior Police Force. This name was later changed to Indian Imperial Police, and it became the IPS corps after independence.

Every year, an increasing number of Indian women qualify for the IPS and are assigned to positions where they can make a difference. To be honest, there is no end to the number of female IPS officers who make a difference in the country every day. Here is the list of the top 10 woman IPS Officers who are truly our inspiration.

  1. Kiran Bedi

Kiran Bedi, who is now retired, is well known for being the first woman to join the IPS in 1972. She worked for the government for 35 years and was instrumental in many ways. She was internationally recognised for her remarkable reforms at Tihar Jail. In 2003, Bedi became the first Indian woman to be appointed as the UN Secretary-Police General's Advisor as part of the Peace Keeping Operations Department. She was also the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry from 2016 to 2021. She now directs the Indian Vision Foundation and has written several books.

  1. Aparajita Rai

Rai took the UPSC exams twice and passed both times. During her second attempt, she received the highest marks ever received by a Sikkim candidate, qualifying her to become the state's first female Gorkha IPS officer. Rai has received numerous awards since then, including the Shri Umesh Chandra Trophy for Field Combat, the 55th Batch of Senior Course Officers Trophy, and the West Bengal Government's Trophy.

  1. Meera Chadha Borwankar

Borwankar was appointed as an IPS officer of the Maharashtra Cadre in 1981, where she served as the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mumbai, before becoming the city's first woman to head the Crime Branch Department in 2001. She is credited with resolving numerous high-profile cases, including the extradition of Abu Salem, the Jalgaon sex scandal, the Iqbal Mirchi case, and others. She witnessed Yakub Menon's hanging in 2015 and was the inspiration for the film Mardaani. Many honours have been bestowed upon her, including the President's Medal in 1997, the Police Medal, and the Director General's Insignia.

  1. Dr. Ruveda Salam

Salam qualified for the service, she became the valley's first IPS officer, man or woman. But first, she earned her MBBS from Srinagar's Government Medical College. Salam was assigned as the Assistant Police Commissioner in Chennai after becoming an IPS officer. She decided to reapply for the UPSC in 2015, hoping to qualify for the Indian Administrative Services. Salam has since been assigned as an Assistant Commissioner Income Tax officer in Jammu, where she encourages Kashmiri girls to apply for the UPSC on a daily basis.

  1. Merin Joseph 

Joseph, who was born in 1990, was the youngest IPS officer to qualify for the Kerala Cadre at the age of 25 in 2012. She attended the Sardar Vallabbhai Patel National Police Academy in Hyderabad and served as the Indian Delegate to the Y20 Summit. In June 2019, Joseph took over as Commissioner of the Kollam district, where he discovered a two-year-old child rape case. She travelled to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with her team to arrest the accused in the case, which garnered her and the case the attention they deserved.

  1. Sangeeta Kalia

Kalia passed the UPSC in 2009 and joined the Haryana Police as an IPS officer in 2010. Kalia, on the other hand, rose to prominence in 2015 while serving as the Police Superintendent in Fatehabad, Haryana. She had a heated argument with the state's health minister, Anil Vij, which was widely publicised. The minister told her to "get out," and when she refused and stood firm, she was transferred to another district. Following this incident, Kalia received widespread support for speaking out against the abuse of power that many politicians engage in.

  1. Soumya Sambasivan

When Sambasivan passed the UPSC exams in 2010, she became Shimla's first IPS officer. After joining the Himachal Police, Sambasivan launched an investigation into the state's drug mafia, for which she was nominated for the President's Medal. During her two-year assignment in the Sirmaur district, she solved six murder cases. To reduce molestation in the state, she began teaching high school and college girls how to make special pepper sprays out of household items. This effort made headlines in 2020, bringing Sambasivan's role the attention and recognition it deserved.

  1. Sanjukta Parashar

Sanjukta Parashar is a brave IPS officer from the 2006 batch. For Bodo Assam militants, this name is a nightmare. She has already killed six militants and arrested more than 64 others in the last 15 months. Aside from her outstanding work, she is the first Assamese IPS officer. She received an 85 on the civil service exam and chose IPS duty over administrative work. She leads a team of CRPF Jawans armed with AK-47s as Police Superintendent of Sonitpur District in a terror-infested region. She also received several death threats from National Democratic Fronts, but this had no effect on her. She is one of the most feared officers on the force.

  1. Subhashini Sankaran 

She is the first female IPS officer in independent India to be assigned to the chief minister's security detail. She proves herself and breaks various stereotypes, primarily in roles with no room for error. Subhashini obtained a rank of 243 in the UPSC Mains examination. On December 23, 2014, militants from the National Democratic Front of Bodoland splinter group killed 30 tribals in Sonitpur District. Subashini and her team arrived within 20 minutes and immediately recognised the gravity of the situation. During her time in Assam, she was also in charge of busting a rhino poaching ring that was operating near Kaziranga National Park.

  1. Sonia Narang

Sonia is an IPS officer from the 2002 batch. She received a gold medal in Sociology from Punjab University in 1999. She was later promoted to Deputy Inspector General of Police in the Crime Investigation Department. Sonia was inspired by her father, retired Deputy Superintendent of Police A.N. Narang. Sonia had only one goal in mind: to wear the khaki. She is also known as the iron-willed lady due to her aversion to those who make mistakes and cause problems. She rose to prominence after slapping an MLA during a heated protest between the Congress and the BJP in 2006. Actually, she had to restore a lathi charge to bring things back under control, but BJP MLA Renukacharyaa refused to move from where he was standing. Then she slapped the MLA and threw him behind bars.