From Kerala’s First Woman IPS Officer to Its First Woman DGP, Meet R. Sreelekha

From District Superintendent of Police in three districts to being promoted to Deputy Inspector General in New Delhi, Sreelekha has served in various posts in both state and central deputations.

By Lekshmi Priya S

September 21, 2017

R. Sreelekha, or more popularly ‘Raid’ Sreelekha is indeed a woman of substance and certainly one to be feared by wrongdoers.

Making history by becoming Kerala’s first woman IPS officer in 1987, thirty years later she has reached another milestone — of becoming the state’s first woman Director General of Police, DGP.

Currently serving as the state’s ADGP (Prisons), Sreelekha’s promotion was announced by the Cabinet on Wednesday along with the promotion of three other ADGPs, namely Tomin J Thachankary (DG, Fire and Rescue Services), Arun Kumar Sinha (currently on Central deputation) and Sudesh Kumar (Armed Police Battalion).

The impressive officer has quite an illustrious career graph.

The woman of Substance. Source: Facebook.

A Thiruvananthapuram native, she had started off as a lecturer and bank officer, before joining the police forces in January 1987.

From District Superintendent of Police in three districts to being promoted to Deputy Inspector General in New Delhi, Sreelekha has served in various posts in both state and central deputations.

But it was the four years of her deputation as Superintendent of Police at the CBI in the state that proved to noteworthy, so much as to earn her the name ‘Raid Sreelekha’.

She had also made it to the headlines for uncovering the sensational murder case of Mithila Mohan in 2007 and was awarded the Kerala Government’s Meritorious Service Award.

Elated, she has attributed her achievements to her mother, who strived hard to mould the fearsome police officer that Sreelekha has come to be known today.

“I am extremely proud to get promoted as the first woman DGP. It is a great achievement. Big thanks to my mother. She is the one who brought me up to this stature,” she told The New Indian Express.

Apart from her service to the country, Sreelekha is also a well-known author and has written and published nine books.

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