President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday honoured an Assam police inspector and a CRPF trooper with the nation’s second highest peacetime gallantry medal Kirti Chakra, posthumously, along with an Army Naib Subedar, for fighting terrorists and Maoist insurgents.
A family member each of CRPF constable Bhrigu Nandan Choudhary and Assam police inspector Lohit Sonowal were presented with the Kirti Chakra by Pranab, who had named them for the medal on Republic Day.
Choudhary had fought Naxals in Bihar and Sonowal terrorists in Assam. The two were killed in action.
Naib Subedar Bhupal Singh Magar of the 5/5 Gorkha Rifles won the medal award for killing two terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir in 2013, while guarding the Line of Control (LoC).
A resident of Rupendehi district of Nepal, Magar received the medal for killing two heavily-armed terrorists, who were part of a group infiltrating into India through the LoC on August 31, 2013, in Kupwara district.
Constable Bhrigu Nandan Choudhary of CRPF’s 205 Cobra Battalion has been conferred the medal for his role in foiling a Naxal attack in Gaya in Bihar on September 8, 2012, in which six Left-wing extremists were killed.
Inspector Sonowal won the medal for killing two ULFA terrorists in Tinuskia district of Assam in an operation on April 19, 2013.
Among the nine winners of the Shaurya Chakra -- the third highest medal -- was Central Reserve Police Force Deputy Commandant Prakash Ranjan Mishra, who won the gallantry medal for killing a Naxal from among a group of extremists and forcing them to retreat from their position in an operation on September 17, 2012, in Chatra district of Jharkhand.
The President also conferred 13 Param Vishisht Seva Medals (PVSMs). Among the winners was Army vice chief Lt Gen Dalbir Singh, who is tipped to be the next Army chief when General Bikram Singh retires on July 31 this year.