New Delhi: From co-authoring research papers with Nobel laureates to supervising high-profile cases like the Sheena Bora murder, Rajasthan cadre IPS officer Nina Singh brings to the table a wealth of experience in her role as the first woman head of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
She already held the post of special (interim) DG of the force, after the retirement of her predecessor Sheel Vardhan Singh in August.
Singh, an officer of the 1989 IPS batch, has had an illustrious career spanning from the Rajasthan Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). She also had many firsts in her career, including the first woman IPS officer to become Director General in the Rajasthan Police in 2021.
ThePrint brings her journey over the years from Bihar to Manipur and then Rajasthan to New Delhi.
Daughter of Bihar
Hailing from Bihar’s Darbhanga district, Singh moved to Patna for her secondary education at Patna Women’s College and then did her graduation from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. She enrolled for an MPhil in the Delhi School of Economics, but did not complete it as she joined the police service.
Singh also holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University. It was in Harvard that she co-authored two research papers with Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo on the subject of reforms and improving police performance in a system wherein she gave references from the Rajasthan Police.
Allocated Manipur cadre, the IPS officer was transferred to Rajasthan very early on in her career after her marriage to IAS officer of Rajasthan cadre Rohit Kumar Singh. Her husband is currently serving as a secretary in the Union consumer affairs ministry.
As the Superintendent of Police in Jaipur, she is credited with strictly mandating the use of helmets for two-wheeler riders. She went on to become Deputy Inspector General, Jaipur range and Inspector General, Ajmer range.
The senior IPS officer has received the Ati Utkrisht Seva Pada for professional excellence as well as the Police Medal for Meritorious Service and the President’s Police Medal.
Singh was more into administrator’s role and served in various specialised departments of Rajasthan Police, ThePrint has learnt. She was ADG (Training) before becoming the ADG in charge of the Civil Rights & Anti-Human Trafficking department. She was promoted to DG-level in the same department before she came on deputation to CISF as ADG in 2021.
The CISF stint is her second central deputation as she had served as a joint director with the CBI between 2013 and 2018.
She headed the CBI’s special crime zone and her unit cracked several cases, including the murder of a student in a Gurugram school and the Kotkhai gang rape and murder in Himachal Pradesh, ThePrint earlier reported. She had also supervised high-profile cases including the murder of socialite Indrani Mukerjea’s daughter Sheena Bora.
She was repatriated to the home cadre in 2018 where she served as Additional Director General of Police and in 2021, she went on to become the first woman DG rank police officer in the Rajasthan Police.
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‘Academic officer’
Senior CISF officers told ThePrint that in the four months that she has taken over as the DG of the force, she “galvanised” the force and all the units working across the country.
One of the senior CISF officers said her academic qualities have been well–recognised by the government as well and she is drawing upon them to implement and prepare the force in all aspects of the mandate, especially in inter-department communication as seen in weekly conferences where administration, operations and welfare are discussed.
A top officer in the Rajasthan Police also vouched Singh’s academic prowess and how she has been able to implement it to good effect.
Another senior CISF officer said that she is working on the expansion of the force, a primary agenda for her. For that purpose, Singh has constituted a taskforce in all the sectors of the CISF to expedite the changes required and implement them at the earliest.
“During this small span of four months, she has been able to solve more than 100 issues which were highlighted to her,” a third officer told ThePrint.
A specialised central para-military force, the CISF was established in 1969 and works under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). It currently provides security cover to 358 establishments across the country. The CISF was recently asked by the MHA to carry out a survey of the Parliament complex after the 13 December security breach.
(Edited by Tony Rai)