J&K police win 33% of R-Day gallantry medals

NEW DELHI: Following the abrogation of Jammu & Kashmir’s special status and the extraordinary security vigil that lasted months thereafter, the state police and

CRPF personnel

deployed in the newly formed

Union Territory

have been awarded more than half of police gallantry medals.


The awards announced by the home ministry on Republic Day have seen J&K police personnel being honoured with more than one-third of the total 290 gallantry medals while CRPF has a one-fourth share.

A total 1,040 service and gallantry medals for police and para-military personnel were announced on Saturday, which include four President’s Police Medals for Gallantry (PPMG), 286 Police Medals for Gallantry (PMG), 93 President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service and 657 Police Medal for Meritorious Service.

J&K police reaped a maximum haul of 108 gallantry medals, including 3 PPMG and 105 PMG. CRPF followed with 76 gallantry honours, including one PPMG awarded posthumously and 75 PMG.

Of the 76 CRPF personnel honoured, 46 received gallantry medals for services rendered in J&K. While eight of 46 awardees were honoured for action in Srinagar, 38 were awarded police medals for displaying gallantry during operations in Kashmir Valley.

Together, J&K operations, largely involving fight against terror, got J&K police and CRPF 154 or 53% of the 290 gallantry medals awarded on the occasion of Republic Day 2020.

Incidentally, anti-terror operations in J&K by Army, CRPF and J&K police in 2018 — to which many of the 2020 gallantry awards may pertain — had seen a record 257 terrorists neutralised.

The PPMG winners this year include three J&K police personnel — SSP Abdul Jabbar, Dy SP G H Hassan Sheikh and Constable Asif Iqbal Qureshi.

The only other winner of PPMG is CRPF Constable Utpal Rabha (posthumous), who was honoured for attaining martyrdom while fighting Left-wing extremists in Khunti, West Singhbhum, Jharkhand on June 7, 2018. According to a CRPF release, the PPMG awardee not only held his ground in face of indiscriminate fire by Maoists but in the process ensured safety of his team members. “He laid down his life fighting the Maoists who were raining bullets from their advantageous position in the dense jungle,” it stated.