Hyderabad, Jan. 23: Two senior women IPS officers have made news in the past two months for all the wrong reasons ? allegedly torturing a domestic help and keeping illegal arms.

Deputy commissioner of city police Soumya Mishra alleged last night that her maid Sonia had run away with valuables. The complaint filed by her IAS officer husband, however, came hours after the 22-year-old girl approached chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy?s office seeking protection.

Having failed to meet the chief minister, Sonia told special officer Janardhan Reddy she was beaten up and starved whenever she asked for salary.

She has been lodged in the women?s police station at Punjagutta and is likely to be produced before the chief minister this evening.

Mishra had picked up Sonia from a village in Orissa to help her with domestic chores when she was the superintendent of police at Vizianagaram. She brought her along when transferred to the city last year.

Sonia told the chief minister?s office that she was not paid any salary in the past four years. ?She gave Rs 5,000 to my parents long ago. My salary cannot be so small for the entire period. Whenever I ask them about it, they assault me and deny me food.?

About a fortnight ago, Anjana Sinha, an officer of deputy inspector-general rank in the CID, was charged with possessing weapons.

Yadagari, a known criminal, told the police during interrogation that he had deposited some weapons, including a foreign-made pistol, with Sinha ? then a deputy commissioner in the city police ? in the run-up to the state polls.

The weapons were stashed in Sinha?s bedroom and not in the police armoury months after the polls. The DIG is facing a departmental inquiry, but the Opposition has been demanding that she be charged with criminal offence.