It takes courage and patience to become a successful IPS officer. He or she should be able to lead from the front and be quick in decision making. IPS officer Ashish Tiwari is one such person.
Mr. Tiwari, a 2012 batch officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre says that fighting crimes shouldn’t be the only agenda of police officers. Though they should strive for a crime free state, it can’t be achieved only through putting the criminals behind the bars, he argues.
Mr. Tiwari is currently posted in Jhansi as the SP (Railways).
Investment Banking to Policing
Mr. Tiwari was born and brought up in a middle-class family of Itarsi, Madhya Pradesh. His father was an engineer in Railways. Until class12th , Mr. Tiwari was in his hometown studying in a Kendriya Vidyalaya school. He was a bright student from the beginning; getting admission in IIT Kanpur was no big deal for him. He completed both his B.Tech and M.Tech from here and landed a job of an investment banker in London. He got associated with the well-known global financial company Lehman Brothers for a period of three years, and then moved to Japan for a better opportunity. He was getting a huge package, but something was missing. So, in 2010, he moved back to India and started preparing for UPSC. After two attempts, he cleared the exam. At first, he got into Revenue Services but wasn’t happy with that. He tried again next year, got better ranks and the Indian Police Service.
Since then, Mr Tiwari has been posted at various prestigious and crucial positions.
Before Jhansi, Mr. Tiwari was posted as the SSP of Ayodhya. He was also given the charge of sensitive districts like Mirzapur and also spent a lot of time as the SP (Jaunpur).
Maintaining Peace in Ayodhya
Mr. Tiwari was posted in Ayodhya last year when the judgement of the Apex court on Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid issue came. He was the part of a three-member core police team entrusted with maintaining peace in Ayodhya before and after the final verdict. He conducted a number of meetings with people residing in the region, along with the local leaders and politicians. With the continuous effort of Mr. Tiwari and his fellow officer Anuj Kumar Jha (DM, Ayodhya at that time) under the leadership of DIG Ashutosh Pandey, Ayodhya remained peaceful during this time.
Green Brigade
While staying in Mirzapur, a Naxalite sensitive area, Mr. Tiwari introduced a unique way to track illegal activities in the region. For this, he chose a team of women and trained them in Martial Arts and Karate with the help of NGOs. These women would wear green `sarees’- hence the name Green Brigade for them- and were armed with a whistle as a weapon. Whenever they saw any illegal activities, they would blow the whistle to inform their other teammates and the police. This brigade came to be known as the friends of police and has helped a lot in curbing gambling, drug usage and domestic violence.
