New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government has appointed IPS officer Laxmi Singh as the Noida police chief, making her the first woman to head a commissionerate in the state.
The Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the year 2000 batch was the inspector general of the Lucknow Range.
Before Singh, Alok Singh was the police commissioner of Noida or Gautam Budh Nagar. He was transferred to the Uttar Pradesh police headquarters in Lucknow on Monday night, along with several others in a routine shuffle.
In the late night Cabinet decision Monday, the state’s three new commissionerates – Ghaziabad, Prayagraj and Agra — also got new chiefs.
Laxmi Singh played an important role during the Lakhimpur Kheri violence in October 2021 before the state elections in February this year, a report said.
On 3 October last year, during protests against the central government’s now-withdrawn farm laws, a car carrying BJP leader Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish, mowed down four farmers and a journalist. In the ensuing violence, two BJP workers and Ajay Mishra’s driver were beaten to death by farmers.
Laxmi Singh apparently took the initiative to pacify farmers, for which she was given the Chief Minister’s Excellence Service Police Medal.
She is the wife of Uttar Pradesh BJP MLA Rajeshwar Singh, who previously served as a joint director in the Enforcement Directorate.
Singh was declared the best probationer during her training at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy, Hyderabad.
She also received the silver baton from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Apart from this, she got a 9 mm pistol as a prize from the Union Home Ministry.
Previously, Singh served in several top positions in Varanasi, Chitrakoot, Gonda, Farrukhabad, Baghpat and Bulandshahr.
She has often been in the limelight for her campaigns against the mafia and organised crime.
Impressed with her flamboyance, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had given Singh the responsibility of capital Lucknow in 2019.
The 48-year-old has a B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering, and had her first posting as senior superintendent of police in 2004.
A senior official who has worked with her told news agency Press Trust of India that she maintains a personal diary of criminal incidents that take place in her jurisdiction.
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