Who is Manisha Ropeta, Pakistan’s first Hindu woman to become senior cop?

By Team Newsable | First Published Jul 29, 2022, 8:35 AM IST

Ropeta from Sindh's Jacobabad region said, "Since childhood, my sisters and I have witnessed the same old patriarchal system where females are told that the only professions they may pursue if they want to pursue an education and a career are teaching and medicine."

Manisha Ropeta is attracting attention for a number of reasons, including the fact that the 26-year-old is the first member of Pakistan's minority Hindu population to hold the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police. She is also one of the few female officers in senior roles in the Sindh Police. It is challenging for women to enter "manly" professions like the police force in Pakistan's male-dominated culture and society.

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Ropeta, who comes from a middle-class family in the interior Sindh province and lives in Jacobabad, claims she wants to put an end to the idea that young women from respectable homes shouldn't interact with the police or district courts.

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Because she believes that society needs "protector" women, she joined the police. "Women are the most downtrodden and the target of many crimes in our culture," she claimed. Ropeta, who is presently undergoing training, will be assigned to Lyari's crime-ridden neighbourhood. She believed that becoming a senior police officer actually offers women power and influence.

Her youngest brother is also pursuing medicine, and her other three sisters are all physicians.

Ropeta cited her one-mark failure to pass the MBBS admission exams as the reason she decided to change her career. She then informed her family that she was pursuing a degree in physical therapy while also preparing for the Sindh Public Services Commission exams, which she passed and placed her in the 16th position out of 468 applicants.

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In Jacobabad, Ropeta's father worked as a merchant. When she was 13 years old, he passed away, and her mother moved her children to Karachi to raise them.

(With PTI inputs)

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