Karnataka IPS officer D Roopa refuses award funded by BJP MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar

D Roopa, an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer has refused to accept the “Namma Bengaluru Award” stating that her conscience didn’t allow her to accept it as the award comes with a high cash reward.

Hailed as Lady Singham, Roopa is currently the Inspector General of Police, Home Guard and Civil Defence, Bengaluru. During her stint as DIG prisons, she had earlier exposed the “special treatment” to All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Amma) leader VK Sasikala inside her prison cell, reported the Newsminute.

"Every government servant is expected to maintain neutrality and equidistance from all quasi-political bodies and associations that have even the bare minimum political overtone. Only then a public servant can maintain a clean and fair image in the eyes of the public," she said in the letter to written to the chairman of Namma Bengaluru Foundation, a non-profit organisation based out of Bengaluru. “It becomes all the more relevant now in the view of the ensuing elections.”

Namma Bengaluru Awards have been instituted by and funded by businessman and BJP Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar. The awards are given to multiple personalities across categories by the foundation of Chandrasekhar.

As the news broke on internet, social media users started praising the senior cop profusely for demonstrating exceptional neutrality and integrity.

Roopa was awarded President’s medal last year in recognition of her outstanding services. The firebrand super cop, during her first stint as Alnavar district SP in Madhya Pradesh, arrested Uma Bharti, then Chief Minister of that state, based on court orders in a 10-year-old rioting case.

As DCP in Bengaluru, Roopa withdrew a number of police personnel who had been unauthorisedly deployed as orderlies for VVIPs and politicians including a former Chief Minister. Last year she had rapped Mysuru BJP MP Pratap Simha for his controversial remarks on transfer of IPS officers.