Kerala IPS woman in trouble for raiding CPM office

A young woman IPS officer in Kerala is in the eye of a storm as she dared to conduct a raid in the party office of the ruling CPM in the state in search of some partymen accused of attacking a police station.

In an embarrassment to the CPM, Chaithra Teresa John, a 2016 batch IPS officer, led a police team to the CPM district committee office in the state capital on Thursday night.

While a probe is on into the act of the officer, she is being flooded with support on social media. The Opposition Congress-led UDF, also backed the IPS officer.

However, the IPS officer, who was serving as the Superintendent of Police (Women Cell), was holding the additional charge of the Deputy Commissioner of Police too, as the incumbent officer, R Aaditya, was on Sabarimala duty and subsequent medial leave.

Soon after the raid at the CPM office, Chaithra was relieved from the charges of the Deputy Commissioner and Aaditya was asked to rejoin.

It was following suspicions that some CPM-DYFI activists accused of attacking a police station in the city couple of days ago were hiding in the party office. But the search at the party office was in vain.

The CPM district leadership immediately expressed their resentment and took up the matter with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The chief minister immediately asked state police chief Loknath Behera to give a report on the matter, which is still pending.

The actions against Chaithra Teresa John have triggered sharp criticism from various quarters. Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said that the action taken against her exposed the lack of commitment of the Left government towards safety of women. He said such acts would affect the morale of the police force.

Social media, too, was abuzz with messages in support of the IPS officer.

A native of North Kerala district Kozhikode, Chaithra earlier served with the Indian Railway Traffic Safety before joining the IPS. She won the best performer title in various categories during her training at the National Police Academy.

There were allegations that the CPM was quite unhappy with her for quite sometime as she did not concede to the demands of party leaders while serving as ASP in Thalasserry, a CPM stronghold.

Also she had recently initiated nabbing CPM service organisation leaders in connection with an attack on a State Bank of India branch in Thiruvananthapuram.