Geetha Johri, an IPS officer of the 1982 batch, was appointed Director General of Police (DGP) Gujarat on Tuesday after the sudden ouster of PP Pandey, who resigned from the post following a petition in the Supreme Court.
Johri, with the appointment, has become the first woman IPS officer to be appointed to a senior-most position in the state.
Johri's predecessor, Pandey, is an accused in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.
- Johri was the managing director of the Gujarat Police Housing Corporation in Gandhinagar before she was promoted to the rank of the DGP by the state government.
- She shot to fame when she conducted a raid on mafia don Abdul Latif's hideout in Ahmedabad and arrested his henchman Sharif Khan in September 1992.
- She also filed an FIR in the apex court in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case and the sudden disappearance of his wife Kausar Bi, following which 13 police officers were arrested in 2006. Johri led the investigation when she was the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and proved that the encounter was fake after a detailed inquiry into the matter. The officers who were arrested also included three IPS officers: DIG DG Vanzara, SP Rajkumar Pandian and Dinesh MN.
- However, Johri was also interrogated by the CBI because the investigating agency believed she had destroyed some important documents that could have helped investigators identify the seven police personnel from Andhra Pradesh who had assisted local police in the fake encounter. The case was transferred to the CBI following a court order.
- Johri is also known to have taken on powerful politicians when she was the DIG in Gandhinagar in 1998. She was the principal of the training academy in Vadodara as well, but was later sacked from the post.
