IPS officer Sanjukta Parashar, known as ‘Iron Lady of Assam’, has become the first woman officer to lead CRPF’s jungle warfare commando unit, CoBRA.

Parashar, a 2006-batch officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, earned the moniker of Iron Lady after leading the crackdown against militant outfit National Democratic Front of Bodoland in 2013-14 as the then Sonitpur SP.

Parashar, who is from Assam, has served both in her cadre as well as in NIA, specialising in key counter-terror investigations. She was heading the CID wing of Assam Police before being appointed IG, CoBRA.

She will head CoBRA at a time when the force is engaged in holding and securing large forest areas, mostly in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, reclaimed from Naxals. These operations played a key role in almost eliminating Left-wing extremism in the country by March 2026.