“We Are Accessible To Redressing People’s Grievances 24×7” —Chhaya Sharma DCP, South District, Delhi

Chhaya Sharma is a pucca Delhiite. An IPS of Union Territory cadre and one of the toppers of 1999 batch, she is presently working with the Delhi Police. She, in the last 12 years, has not only seen the police culture at close range but also learned the trade of effective policing. She has neutralised many gangs in the most crime prone outer district where the heinous crime remained on the rise. She had numerous postings—in 2005-2008 in Arunachal Pradesh and Pondicherry she worked as a Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Law and Order and Crime and Railways. Sharma prides herself on taking a case of some 16 minor girls whom she rescued from Delhi’s red light area GB Road, PS Kamla Market, when she was the second head of the central district. South district remains pressed for time like many others on the rolls earlier, despite all that the no-attitude Chhaya Sharma took time off for a tete-a-tete. Excerpts:

What makes you to take the plunge?

From day one, I wanted to become an IPS—when I’d grow up was all what I ever thought. I wrote and finally cracked.

What subjects did you go for?

Geography and psychology

What difference have you noticed between the outer district and here in south, which you have already seen as second head, as far as the nature of crime goes?

As far as crime is concerned, it’s more or less the same everywhere. But yes nature varies due to certain factors, like the density of population and mindset of the people inhabiting the area more importantly the neighbouring states hugging the periphery of the district you man. We need to study the topography. I have already served here for a year and a half. I know the entire area very well. South district has always done well in detection of crime.

Outer has problems of land grabbing that triggers heinous crimes like murder. There were a couple of gangs in my book which we stamped out. Here in south, citizens are not as raw, they come to us and discuss their problems. We are accessible to redressing their grievances 24×7.

How do you juggle with two of the responsibilities, office and home front?

See, you have to; as life teaches all arts. I too have learnt to keep the balance. I feel comfortable. On weekends I take time off to look after my school going daughter Tanya. She too understands us.

She misses her mom. Do you give her quality time?

Yeah, of course, I do. Even she calls me up at regular intervals.

What’s your pastime?

I love my work. When there is any time left I spend those moments with my family.

How does it feel to have two IPS in the family, your husband Vivek Kishore is heading the central Delhi?

This doubles the responsibility.

South district in the recent past hogged the limelight whether it be Dhaula Kuan gang rape, murders of Jigeesha Ghosh, Saumya Viswanathan or Radhika Tanwar. Almost all of them have been worked out but Shobhit murder case seems rather blind. Are Delhi Police going to shut it?

No, our teams are still working and soon we will nail the culprits. We’ll get them.

You rounded up many BCs and local criminals and also detained his friends. did something come to the surface, any breakthrough or a lead to develop?

It’s a matter of investigation.

How challenging do you find to look at it?

Yeah, very much. It’s a test for us. We are still probing other angles as well. We have lots coming next as some of the best talents of south district (police) are working on it.

By Syed Wazid Ali