 "‘I am from a warrior family, it’s in my genes’: Op Sindoor’s Col Sofiya Qureshi said in 2023 video chat")
“I belong to a warrior family, it was in my genes and I wanted to don the uniform,” Colonel Sophia Qureshi had said in 2023 at a Nari Shakti event hosted by CNBC-TV18.
Today, Colonel Qureshi was at the helm of ‘Operation Sindoor’ media briefing along side Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, where she detailed how the strikes, conducted under Operation Sindoor, were targeted, measured, and non-escalatory — focused on terror outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
'I belong to a warrior family, it was in my genes. I'm privileged to serve the nation with honour & pride... Thankful to my organisation for giving me the opportunity to command,' Col #SofiyaQureshi said in a chat with @ShereenBhan in August 2023.
— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18News) May 7, 2025
Qureshi was at the helm of… pic.twitter.com/awrb5OsEg7
In an interview with CNBC-TV18 in August 2023, she said, “I’m privileged to serve the nation with honour and pride… Thankful to my organisation for giving me the opportunity to command.”
Colonel Qureshi, a highly decorated officer from the Indian Army’s Corps of Signals, holds the distinction of being the first woman to command an Indian Army contingent in a multinational military exercise.
In 2016, she led the Indian delegation at ‘Exercise Force 18’, the largest foreign military drill ever hosted by India at the time.
Moreover, she was the only woman commander among representatives from 18 participating countries.
Colonel Qureshi hails from Vadodara and holds a Master’s degree in Biochemistry from MS University, completed in 1997.
Despite her academic background in science, she chose a different path and joined the Indian Army, commissioning into the Corps of Signals, where she has earned several distinctions over the years.
Coming from a military family, her grandfather served as a religious teacher in the Indian Army. Continuing the tradition, she is married to an officer in the Army’s Mechanised Infantry.
With inputs from agencies
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