Seema Pahuja (CBI) Age, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Seema Pahuja

• Seema Pahuja joined the CBI in 1988, after completing her BCom degree.

• She rose to the post of sub inspector in 1993 and spent the following years building experience in field investigations.

• In 2013, the CBI promoted her to deputy superintendent of police. Around this period she worked in the CBI unit in Chandigarh, where she handled a range of criminal investigations.

• In 2017, Pahuja investigated the Kotkhai case in Shimla, widely known as the Gudiya case.

• A class 10 girl went missing while returning from school and her body turned up two days later. The attackers raped and strangled her.

• The state police could not crack the case, and public anger pushed the government to hand it over to the CBI.

• Pahuja used a technique called lineage testing for the first time in India to pull a chromosome sample from the victim’s body.

• This evidence led the team to a clan in Kangra and finally to the accused, a woodcutter named Anil Kumar.

• Out of 14 key pieces of evidence the CBI produced, 12 turned out damning for the accused, and the court gave him life imprisonment.

• The same year, she worked on the Unnao rape case, which involved BJP leader and sitting MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar.

• Sengar had raped a 17 year old Dalit girl, and the court convicted him and gave him life imprisonment. The BJP expelled him from the party after the case drew national attention.

• In 2020, Pahuja joined the team investigating the Hathras gangrape case, which caused widespread outrage across the country.

• Four men from an upper caste allegedly assaulted a 19 year old girl in Hathras. She later died from her injuries at Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi.

• During this stretch of her career, she also handled the case of Ranjit Singh Kohli, a national level shooter from Jharkhand who went by the name Raquib ul Hassan.

• Kohli tortured his wife Tara Shahdeo, also a national level shooter, and the court found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

• In 2021, the government gave her the President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Services. The CBI also honoured her with the Best Investigating Officer gold medal the same year.
  

  Seema Pahuja being awarded by Narendra Modi

• In 2022, she rose further to the rank of additional superintendent of police. Reports from around this time note she also served as deputy superintendent of police in the anti corruption bureau in Ghaziabad.

• In August 2024, the CBI named Pahuja as the lead investigator in the Kolkata trainee doctor rape and murder case at RG Kar Medical College.

• She reached Kolkata soon after and took charge of the probe. Colleagues describe her as a sharp officer who studies witnesses closely and builds cases on strong forensic evidence, and who stays with a case till the end to secure convictions that hold up in court.

• By September 2026, she was serving as superintendent of police in the Special Crime Unit at CBI headquarters in Delhi.

• That month, the CBI put her in charge of monitoring the investigation into the death of Disha Salian, former manager of actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

• The Bombay High Court had ordered the CBI to register an FIR in the case, and the agency filed it on 13 September 2026.

• The FIR carries sections under the IPC for criminal conspiracy, gangrape, murder, destruction of evidence and preparation of false records by public servants, but names no accused, in line with the high court’s directions.

• Deputy superintendent of police Puran Kumar and other officers are assisting her in the case.

• The team plans to record statements of people who attended a gathering at the house of Rohan Rai, Disha Salian’s fiancé, on the night of 8 June 2020, before her death that year.