Kerala-born IPS officer's kin gets flooded with praise after her stance against Ajit Pawar during mining crackdown

Thiruvananthapuram: It could be a coincidence that the young woman IPS officer from Kerala who boldly dealt with Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar's intervention in an anti-mining operation herself hailed from a region that once witnessed massive public protest against mining.

Sub-division police officer of Karmala at Solapur in Maharashtra Anjana Krishna V S hails from Malayankeezhu on the suburbs of Thiruvananthapuram. It is close to Mookkunnimala which witnessed massive public protest against the illegal granite quarrying around ten years back. It was then found that 35 illegal quarries were operating in the region. Following the stirs it could be curbed.

"Though my daughter was not in any way involved in the Mookkunnimala stirs, being a local resident she might be obviously familiar with the stir and the ecological concerns over the massive quarrying. Being a social worker I was familiar with the hardships of the people living close to the region," says her father Viju V R, who is a local businessman.

It was a surprise for Viju and family when Anjana told them after her higher secondary studies that she wished to be an IPS officer, though the family wished that she became a doctor. She also gave IPS as first option in the civil services examination, recollects Viju. "We still don't know how the IPS dream grew in her," he added.

Over the last couple of days the family is flooded with calls from friends and relatives appreciating the "bold stand" taken by Anjana. The social media is also abuzz with appreciation for the young IPS officer.

"She seems to have done her job only as we did not see any sorts of tension in her. Though we generally do not discuss any official matters, during our routine video calls, we couldn't read any tension in her from her face. But I didn't see any sort of tension in her face after this incident too," Viju told DH.

Anjana, whose mother Seena L is an upper division typist in Thiruvananthapuram district court and brother Arjun a MBBS student, cracked the civil services examination on her fourth attempt after completing her degree in mathematics. 

Though she got a job in the Railways just ahead of the civil service exam results came, she seems to be quite confident of cracking the civil services and hence took an extension from joining the railways.  She also fared well in her studies and was college topper in degree studies at the NSS college at Niramankara in Thiruvananthapuram. Along with the degree studies she also did a brief journalism course and worked as internee with a vernacular daily.

It was her first posting after training as sub-division officer of Karmala. She couldn't come down to Kerala for this Onam festival owing to the Ganesh Chathurthi festival related security duties.