For the first time in India, a woman police officer has been
appointed as the head of a paramilitary force. Senior IPS officer
Archana Ramasundram was on Monday appointed director general of
Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the first woman to head a paramilitary force.
Ramasundram is currently director, National Crime Records Bureau. She
has been appointed to the post till the date of her superannuation
September 30, next year, an order issued by Department of Personnel and
Training (DoPT) said.
58-year-old Ramasundram is the first woman police officer to have
been appointed as the chief of a paramilitary force. The SSB is
entrusted with guarding the country's frontiers with Nepal and Bhutan.
There are five paramilitary forces — SSB, Central Reserve Police Force
(CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force
and Indo Tibetan Border Police — and none has ever had a woman chief.
The Tamil Nadu cadre officer was in news in 2014 over her appointment
as additional director in the CBI.
Her appointment was also challenged
in the Supreme Court after which she was moved to the NCRB as its chief.
Besides her, IPS officers — K
Durga Prasad and K K Sharma — have been
appointed Director Generals of CRPF and BSF, respectively. They will
take over after the incumbent chiefs of these forces retire at the end
of this month.
Prasad, a 1981 batch IPS officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre, was in 2014
unceremoniously removed as chief of the Special Protection Group, which
provides security to the
Prime Minister, former Prime Ministers and
their family members, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trip to
Nepal to attend the Saarc summit.
He was in January last year appointed special director general of the
CRPF, the force entrusted with multiple duties in the internal security
domain including, anti-naxal operations.
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