Charu Sinha becomes the first woman officer to head 4 CRPF sectors
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New Delhi, Feb 23: Charu Sinha has become the first woman officer to serve as the inspector general (IG) of four sectors of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) with her transfer to the paramilitary force’s southern sector in Hyderabad on Tuesday.
This came after she successfully completed her tenure of two and half years as Srinagar sector CRPF IG as she became the first woman officer to do so in September 2020.
Over the next two years, she led the force in nearly 69 anti-insurgency operations in which at least 21 terrorists were killed. She commanded 22 battalions of around 22,000 CRPF personnel in the Budgam, Srinagar, and Ganderbal districts of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).
Srinagar Sector #CRPF bids adieu to Ms.Charu Sinha IG who’s proceeding on transfer after completing her tenure.“ThankYou for hosting me with so much of warmth.I wish peace n prosperity for this heaven on earth. #Kashmir ll always be home & Kashmiris, family”, she says in her msg. pic.twitter.com/1B8tIOFwf6
— Srinagar Sector CRPF 🇮🇳 (@crpf_srinagar) February 21, 2023
Sinha, the first woman in the force’s leadership role in Kashmir, led a joint CRPF and J&K police team that killed top Lahkar-e-Taiba commander Salim Parray and another “foreign terrorist” in January 2022.
A 1996 batch Indian Police Service officer, she was also involved in anti-Maoist operations in the Bihar sector before coming to Kashmir. She looked after the security arrangements for the Amarnath Yatra when it was conducted for the first time in two years after the Covid-19 pandemic in 2022.
Sinha’s stint in Kashmir was focussed beyond regular policing and on intelligence gathering and building bridges. She was posted there over a month after the nullification of the Constitution’s Article 370, which stripped the region of its semi-autonomous status in August 2019, and triggered protracted restrictions.