Superintendent Bimala Thapa Sharma means business. "Rules are not made to be broken," says the cop responsible for many high profile operations in the country's toughest and arguably most corrupt beat-Tribhuban International Airport. Within two months this year, she made two record seizures of Rs 41 million and Rs 34 million of currency being smuggled out of Nepal. This was followed by a spate of drug hauls from foreigners, again in unprecedented quantities.

With her short-cropped hair and uniform Bimala exudes an air of no-nonsense professionalism. She may measure barely over 5ft in her black boots, but her male subordinates have found to their discomfort, that they disobey her orders at their own peril. Policemen unable to control crowds milling about the arrival area are mercilessly berated in public by Bimala.
She is conscious of the airport's reputation for corruption and is determined to make her mark in cleaning it up. "If you have devotion and sincerity, the mess can be sorted out," she told us. "I believe leadership must lead by example."

With Bimala this is not just lip-service, she practices what she preaches.

At first she had to overcome cliques in her own ranks, many who ran well-oiled smuggling and extortion rackets. Then Bimala took action against 60 'dirty' officers at the airport. Many were sent off to the police correction training centre. "Today, my staff is much more efficient," she chuckles.

It took a while for Bimala to find her niche. As a schoolgirl in Nuwakot, north of Kathmandu, she wanted to join the army till she was told women couldn't enlist. So she was a teacher for a while, and joined the civil service, followed by a brief stint in journalism before finding her true calling: in the Nepal Police. This mother of two differs from most female stereotypes. Dedication to the job keeps her running around the airport trouble-shooting, sometimes up to 19 hours a day. "That's how I stay trim and fit," quips Bimala.

Only three percent of the police staff in Nepal are female, but this does not intimidate her. The chain of command means she is there to do a job, and it doesn't matter what gender she is. "Besides, I saw how incompetent many men were when I trained with them for the force," Bimala recalls. She confesses sometimes using charm to extract information, but would-be criminals better watch out: "For crooks, I am a cop first, and then a woman."
(Navin S Khadka)