The Hindu : Front Page : Gallantry awards presented

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Tuesday, Jul 06, 2004

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Gallantry awards presented

— Photo: V.V. Krishnan

Aarti Thakur, wife of Ranbir Singh, Sub-Inspector, Jammu and Kashmir Police, who was posthumously decorated with Shaurya Chakra, receiving the award from the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, at the Defence investiture ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday.

NEW DELHI, JULY 5. The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, today presented awards for gallantry and distinguished service to 81 Defence and security personnel at an emotion-filled investiture ceremony in the Ashoka Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhawan here.

An overwhelming majority of the awards for gallantry have been earned for action in trouble-torn Jammu and Kashmir. And as many as four of the five Kirti Chakras, the one Bar to the Shaurya Chakra and almost half (16) of the 33 Shaurya Chakras were won posthumously.

The Kirti Chakra winners include Border Security Force constable C. Stanly (posthumous), who despite being wounded during the siege of a house in July 2002, maintained his position and gunned down a fleeing terrorist even after being mortally wounded. The BSF's 171 Battalion Commandant, Virender Prasad Purohit, likewise, won the coveted honour by holding fast to his post during an assault on a house where terrorists were hiding, despite his wounds. He succeeded in gunning down two terrorists but at the cost of his life. A similar act earned Grenadier Anil Kumar his posthumous award when despite his considerable injuries he was engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with a terrorist, killing him before succumbing to his own wounds.

The fourth posthumous Kirti Chakra recipient, Major Inderjeet Singh Babbar, was awarded the medal for leading an operation against hardcore, armed ULFA militants in Assam.

Subedar Dil Bahadur Thapa of 9 Assam, won the medal for a conspicuous show of bravery in which he charged up a cave in which four infiltrators were sheltering, lobbing grenades and firing from the hip, till he succeeded in killing all the four.

A Bar to the Shaurya Chakra was posthumously awarded to Lt.Col. Kanwar Jaideep Singh, 6 Dogra, for an encounter with a group of infiltrators in which he displayed exemplary bravery, saving the life of his men, and organising a reinforced patrol to follow and round up the terrorists, during which he was shot and killed by a terrorist from a second group. — UNI

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