Cst. Puneet Deol | Sikh Heritage Month

Cst. Puneet Deol paved the way for Sikh women in policing since becoming the first South Asian female police officer in Ottawa in 2022.

“It became my motivation,” Cst. Deol said. She applied with the Ottawa Police Service straight out of university and held onto that vision: “I’m gonna be the first one.”

On October 18, 2022, she received her badge.

“My family is incredibly proud of me,” she said. “Watching me get sworn in, my parents were very emotional.”

The highest form of service according to Sikh religion is the service of others without any expectation of a service returned. Service of humanity is the motto of Sikhism and “seva” is a primary principle of the religion that Cst. Deol focuses on. “Seva means selfless service,” she explained. “And every day in this job, we are doing that and putting others before us.”

“Growing up in my community, policing was always seen as a very respectable job,” she said. “Policing has only been positive in my life and that’s mostly because my family supports me so much and I have an entire community backing me.”

Based on her experience breaking barriers for women in policing, Cst. Deol has witnessed the impact she has made both within the service and in the community. “Many times, women in the community request speaking with female officers only, but now I can also go in settings where I am familiar with the culture and the family norms and their values, and it’s important to have these options available in a city with so much diversity.” 

Cst. Deol did not grow up hoping to become a police officer as it was not a career she could imagine for herself at the time, reminding us how much representation matters. “Policing was never a childhood dream because I had never seen an Indian female officer before, so I didn’t even know it was an option for me.”

Cst. Deol’s involvement in her community since childhood has kept her surrounded with youth, from visiting the Temple every Sunday to managing a Punjabi dance team. “The young girls see resemblance with me, from the way we look to us learning the same dances together.” The girls go up to Cst. Deol and tell her that “they want to be police officers.”

But her impact goes beyond the young Sikh community. South Asian women in their twenties and above reach out to Cst. Deol in search for advice on how to get into policing. “I never had that person to reach out to when there were no South Asian women in OPS,” Deol explained. “There were some leaders in our community, but no females.”

“I get to be for them the person I needed back then.”