Kerala’s first woman IPS officer and ex-DGP R Sreelekha joins BJP

Sreelekha, a 1987 batch officer, was the first woman IPS officer in the state cadre and retired as the director general of the Kerala Fire and Rescue Services in 2020

KOCHI: Kerala’s first Indian Police Service (IPS) officer R Sreelekha on Wednesday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying this was the best way to serve the public.

BJP Kerala president K Surendra and others with former IPS R Sreelekha after she joined the party. (PTI via X/@surendranbjp)

Sreelekha, a 1987 batch officer, was the first woman IPS officer in the state cadre and retired as the director general of the Kerala Fire and Rescue Services in 2020.

“I served as a non-partisan officer for 33.5 years. But after my retirement, I began looking at many issues from a distance. That’s when I realised this is the best path to do public service. I have belief and faith in the party’s ideals,” she said after formally accepting party membership from state BJP president K Surendran at her residence in Thiruvananthapuram.

BJP state president K Surendran said, “Sreelekha is extremely familiar to the people of the state. She was a brave officer who led several reforms within the police force. She made many decisions against human rights violations and cemented the role of women in the police force. She is also a well-known writer. I hope that her years of experience and her leadership will boost the BJP and its worker-base.”

After serving as Additional DGP (vigilance) and ADGP (police home guards, community policing, gender justice), Sreelekha was promoted to the DGP rank in 2017, becoming the first woman in the state to occupy the rank. She served as the director general of prisons and correctional services and later, as head of the fire and rescue services till her retirement in December 2020.