I S Yasmin was on a deserted highway once, waiting off-road for a car to pass by. On another occasion, she shadowed a man who hopped off a bus, got into a train, and then a car, all in one day. Today, recalling her initial days as a rookie who went in the guise of a nurse one day, and salesgirl on another for investigations, she acknowledges how risky her job is. “But I am able to find solutions to problems no one else can,” she says. “So, it’s all worth it.” Yasmin, who is considered the first woman detective in the city, was recently honoured with an award by Coimbatore-based We Wonder Women, an NGO.
Yasmin has been in the field for over a decade, and runs her own agency — ISY Verification Service in the city, with 75 freelance private investigators across the country, with a few abroad as well. But before it all began, Yasmin owned a beauty salon and a boutique in the city. She still owns the boutique, but has taken a backseat in its running.
“I started out in 2011 at an agency in Chennai,” she recalls, adding that two years later, she established her own verification service. She deals with a lot of cases relating to trust issues within families and business partners, and also does employee verification for companies. “I’ve had worried parents get me to find out why their teenager was acting differently all of a sudden,” she says: “This has led us to people dealing with drugs, and there have been occasions when I’ve gotten close enough with my subjects to sit them down and talk them out of substance abuse.”
