Honour for Delhi Police’s Republic Day contingent

The Delhi Police women marching contingent won the award in both categories: by a panel of judges and by an online public vote

The all-women troupe of the Delhi Police was on Tuesday adjudged the best marching contingent on Republic Day, officials aware of the matter said.

The Delhi Police all-women contingent during the 75th Republic Day Parade. (Raj K Raj/HT photo)

Minister of state for defence and tourism Ajay Bhatt awarded the honour to the Delhi Police contingent while presenting the awards to tableaux marching contingents of the central armed police forces and other auxiliary forces for Republic Day parade 2024. This was the first time that Delhi police deployed an all-women marching contingent during the Republic Day parade, officials said.

There were two categories for the awards, said officials, one of which was selected by a panel of judges and the other was judged through an online public vote conducted on the website mygov.in.The Delhi Police women marching contingent won the award in both the categories.

The 144-member contingent was led by 2019-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Shweta K Sugathan.

“It was definitely a new and exciting experience to train and lead a team of completely new people. We were initially practising once every week for months but we had to crunch in four to five hours of practice per day from December to get better results,” she said, and added that the preparations for the parade started in July last year.

“There were several challenges in training and getting a completely new team ready for the parade. But compared to last year, when I was the newest person on the team, I was more confident, and it was a fulfilling experience,” she added.

This was the second consecutive year that Sugathan, currently posted as additional deputy commissioner of police-2 (north), led the contingent at the parade.2024 was also be the first time that the Delhi Police displayed an all-women pipe band at the parade. Last year, all members of the pipe band were women — barring the leader — but this year, the 85-member pipe band was led by constable Ruyangunuo Kense, officers said.

“This is definitely something that the Delhi Police made from the scratch, and I am really happy that the effort rewarded so well,” said Sugathan, referring to preparations for both the marching contingent and the band.

Last year, Sugathan became the second woman officer to lead the Delhi Police marching contingent at the Republic Day parade, after Kiran Bedi in 1975.