When the Central Reserve Police Force needed a new commander for its most specialised jungle warfare unit this September, it looked to an officer whose name has followed Assam’s insurgency story for nearly two decades.
Sanjukta Parashar, the 2006-batch IPS officer once nicknamed the Iron Lady of Assam for leading raids against Bodo militants, has become the first woman to head the CRPF’s Commando Battalion for Resolute Action, or CoBRA, since the force was raised in 2008-09.
Parashar succeeds 1996-batch officer Danesh Rana as Inspector General of the 10-battalion unit, which trains commandos for jungle and guerrilla warfare against Left Wing Extremism and insurgency in India’s northeast. A senior officer told the Press Trust of India that it marks the first time in CoBRA’s history that a woman has led the entire force.
How Assam’s forests earned her a nickname
Parashar’s introduction to frontline policing came in Udalguri, where communal clashes between Bodo groups and migrants tested a young assistant commandant fresh off her 2008 posting to Makum. It was her stint as Superintendent of Police in Sonitpur, however, that made her name.
Leading operations against the National Democratic Front of Bodoland through 2013 and 2014, her teams killed 16 militants and arrested 64, a run of operations that turned her into the subject of national profiles built around the nickname, even as militant groups issued death threats against her.
Parashar earned the nickname ‘Iron Lady of Assam’ after leading counter-insurgency operations against Bodo militants in Sonitpur. Photograph: (AI-Generated collage)
Before Assam, Parashar had cleared the UPSC Civil Services Examination in 2006 with an all-India rank of 85, an achievement that put her among the small number of women who break into India’s civil services each year.
She studied political science at Indraprastha College for Women in Delhi before earning a master’s degree, an MPhil, and a PhD in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University; her doctoral research focused on American foreign policy.
A shift from the field to national investigations
Parashar’s career did not stay confined to Assam. She moved to central deputation with the National Investigation Agency, first as Superintendent of Police and later as Deputy Inspector General, and led the investigation into the 2017 Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train bombing.
She also received the Union Home Minister’s Medal for Excellence in Training in April 2022, while still serving as an NIA DIG. By then, round-ups of standout Indian police officers had already flagged her as one to watch.
A 2006-batch IPS officer, Parashar cleared the UPSC Civil Services Examination with an All India Rank of 85. Photograph: (Facebook/Arunil Goon)
She later returned to her home cadre as Inspector General of Assam Police’s Crime Investigation Department, a posting she held before her CoBRA appointment came through. Her promotion adds to a broader run of Assam women stepping into command postings once assumed to be a male preserve.
What her CoBRA command means
CoBRA’s commandos specialise in intelligence-based jungle operations, long-range patrols and counter-ambush tactics, and its battalions are currently deployed against Left Wing Extremism as well as in Manipur amid continuing unrest.
The force first opened its ranks to women in February 2021, when 34 personnel from its all-women battalions began pre-induction training. Parashar’s appointment as its overall commander marks a different order of milestone five years on, and reports indicate women officers currently also head CRPF’s Jammu, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and northeast sectors, making her posting part of a wider pattern rather than an isolated exception.
For an officer once known chiefly for operations in Assam’s forests, the CoBRA post brings together two strands of a career built on field combat and counter-terrorism investigation. It also puts a woman in charge of a force long assumed, by design and by default, to be a man’s command.
