Safin Hasan UPSC Story: Son of a cook & labourer who became India's youngest IPS despite an exam day accident

IPS Safin Hasan

Imagine your mother cooking in other people's kitchens to pay for your school books. Picture your father carrying heavy bricks all day, his back aching, to put food on your plate. This was the everyday reality for a young boy from Gujarat named Safin Hasan.

Safin's parents worked in the diamond industry, but they lost their jobs when he was just a child. To give their son a future, they did whatever it took. His mother took up work as a cook in different homes. His father did hard labour on construction sites. At night, the whole family would come together to run a small cart selling boiled eggs. Life was a constant struggle.

But in the middle of this hardship, Safin had a big dream. One day, a District Collector visited his school. Seeing the respect he commanded and the good he could do, a fire was lit in young Safin's heart. He decided then and there: "I want to be an officer."

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His school saw his brilliance and supported him, letting him study for free in his final years. With help from relatives, he even got into engineering college. The dream was alive.

Then, disaster struck. In 2017, on the very day he was supposed to take his most important UPSC exam, Safin was in a terrible accident. He was badly hurt. Most people would have given up. Not Safin. He went straight to the exam hall, wrote his papers while in immense pain, and only afterwards went to the hospital for surgeries.

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Why? Because he remembered his father's tired hands. He remembered his mother's sacrifices. He could not let them down.

All that pain and struggle was worth it. When the UPSC results came out, Safin Hasan had done it. He had cleared the exam with an All India Rank of 570. At just 22 years old, he became the youngest IPS officer in the country.

The son of a cook and a labourer was now an Indian Police Service officer.

Safin’s story is not about fancy words or complicated ideas. It’s a simple, powerful reminder. It shows us that no matter where you start in life, with hard work and a heart full of love, you can achieve anything. His parents didn't have money, but they gave him a wealth of determination. And that made all the difference.