Internet sensation Merin Joseph IPS becomes KAP Battalion's first woman commandant

The young IPS officer Merin Joseph, who hails from Kerala, became an Internet sensation after her photo during the training period went viral. This was even before she took charge as the Assistant Superintendent of Police (Under Training) in Ernakulam (Rural). She has now become the first woman commandant of second armed battalion of Kerala police in Muttikulangara.

Merin was appointed to the army battalion on New Year's day, while she was serving as the ASP in Irinjalakuda, on the vacancy of Cyril C Valloor. Earlier, for over a month, Uma Behra IPS was in charge of second KAP, while she was serving as Malappuram special police commandant.

It was in 2014 that Merin's photo went viral on social media for being an "extremely attractive" woman in police uniform. The picture was doing the rounds on social media saying she was the new ACP of Kochi. Soon, she clarified it as a fake news and posted on her Facebook account that she was under training in Hyderabad. Later, in December she was appointed as the ASP under training in Kochi, Kerala, and the young officer had announced it via her social media account.

However, Merin also had her share of controversies after taking charge as an officer. She hogged the limelight after her photograph with Malayalam's rising star, Nivin Pauly, taken by Hibi Eden, MLA, went viral on social media. It was alleged that she violated the protocol despite being a responsible officer. Days after the incident, she opened up about the episode, calling it a "non-issue," and said that the photo was taken when there was a long gap during the event that took place at St Teresas College in Ernakulam. 

"When such a gap is there, the Home Minister has already left the venue and the other guests on the stage have moved aside, what am I as a guest with no other duties supposed to do? Jump off the stage? Stand in attention saluting the audience?? Or go sit in an available chair in the corner of the stage and keep myself occupied," she had then written on social media addressing the media.

Merin was the parade commander of Independence Day parade at Central Stadium in Thiruvanthapuram in 2016.