Syed Sehrish Asgar and P K Nitya

NEW DELHI: Dr Syed Sehrish Asgar, a 2013 batch IAS officer, never thought that her new assignment would involve helping people make a phone call to their dear ones hundreds of kilometres away or connecting them with doctors in the Valley. Barely four days before Jammu & Kashmir was turned into a Union territory, she was appointed director of information with the J&K administration in Srinagar , a role that normally involves informing people about the government schemes.

But for the last eight days, crisis management, not propaganda, defines her role as she redresses people’s grievances.

Also posted in Srinagar is P K Nitya, a 2016 batch IPS officer, responsible for overseeing the area between Ram Munshi Bagh and Harvan Dagchi village. The sensitive 40-km stretch not only covers the Dal Lake area and governor’s residence but also buildings where VIPs have been detained.

Asgar and Nitya are the only women IAS and IPS officers posted in the Valley currently.

All other top women bureaucrats are either posted in the Jammu region or in Ladakh .

Asgar, mother of a one-year-old son, is an MBBS who decided to quit her practice in Jammu and sat for the UPSC exam. “As a doctor, I was treating patients. But today, the challenges in the Valley are different. It requires sternness, and emotional support at the same time,” says Asgar, whose husband is currently posted as commissioner of the sensitive Pulwama district. “I am glad if women can change the society,” she adds.

For Nitya, 28, who is from Chhattisgarh, the role is several times more challenging than her earlier corporate job as manager of a cement company.

“Besides securing civilians, I have to oversee the security of VVIPS. Of course, it’s a very different from my life in Chhattisgarh,” says the sub-divisional police officer of Nehru Park, who has to constantly deal with agitated commuters, ranging from retail businessmen to private school teachers.

“I come from Durg in Chhattisgarh, which has always been peaceful. But I love challenges,” says Nitya, a trained chemical engineer with a BTech degree who speaks Kashmiri and Hindi fluently, apart from her mother tongue, Telugu.

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In Video: Women officers who play key roles in Srinagar