Meet DSP Sita Reddy, first woman officer from Telugu states to go on UN Mission
HYDERABAD: Ms. Sita Reddy, DSP, currently working with the Centre of Excellence, Telangana State Police, has achieved a rare feat which many police officers could just dream of. She completed her second United Nations’ Peacekeeping Force mission in South Sudan and joined back duty at the TS Police Headquarters recently.
She is the first woman officer from Telugu states to represent India on a UN mission. Not one, but she has two missions to her credit, first in East Timor in 2010-11 and the recent one in South Sudan in 2021-22 (UNMISS - United Nations Mission in South Sudan).
Speaking with Deccan Chronicle, Ms Sita Reddy says that her UN stint gives her a sense of achievement and satisfaction. On being asked about the challenges she had to face during her stint in South Sudan, the officer says that going through quarantine upon reaching the country in itself was a huge challenge. “Because we landed in South Sudan during the peak of the second Covid wave in India, we were asked to go into quarantine for 15 days, and we were given containers as accommodation and had no communication with people. That 15-day period was quite depressing,” she says.
Needless to say, South Sudan is not the safest country on the planet and serving there comes with its share of security threats. “On the new year’s eve we heard noises and it turns out, people were firing to celebrate. The firing also left a few injured,” Ms Sita Reddy says, throwing light on the hostile situation in the African nation.
“Everybody carries guns there -- SLRs, AK 47s, you name it. You see children carrying guns and the local police are not equipped to control the menace,” says the officer who worked with police from 22 countries at the UN’s Capacity Building section where she had to train the local police and law enforcement agencies to come up with ways for better policing.
Training session being held by the UN Force for the benefit of the local police.
Sharing another experience when the vehicle they were travelling in was stopped by the rebel outfits to hurl threats and abuses, the officer says that given a chance she would go on more missions despite the security threats and multiple challenges that the officers will have to face while being away from home and family.
