Saturday, April 9 2005 18:43 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Four Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans, who had battled militants in the Akshardham Temple attack, were among the 40 personnel of the force presented gallantry awards by Home Minister Shivraj Patil today (Apr 9,2005).

Seven of them were honoured posthumously at the CRPF Investiture Ceremony in New Delhi for laying down their lives in anti-militancy operations across the country while 15 received the prestigious President's Police Medal for gallantry.

M M Sharma, then Deputy Inspector General, ADIG Pooran Singh, Head Constable Pratap Singh and Constable Dharambir Singh were presented police medals for gallantry for fighting the two militants who attacked the temple in Gandhinagar in September 2002. Twenty-eight people were killed before the ultras were gunned down.

The jawans who were honoured posthumously were V M Tripathi, V T Mathew, Talib Hussain, Dhirendra Singh, Jagtar Singh, Ramesh Kumar and D G Ade. The medals were received from the Home Minister by their next-of-kin.

The day is also marked by CRPF as 'Valour Day' as on April 9, 1965, a small contingent of its personnel had repulsed a brigade-level attack by Pakistan on Sardar Post in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat.

Four retired personnel, who had taken part in the battle, were also honoured on the occasion along with five jawans who repulsed the attack on Parliament in 2001.

Presenting the awards, Patil assured that the Government would provide "as much help as needed" in terms of arms and money to security forces whose morale was very high.

The Home Minister said that he had seen the valour of those who fought ultras in the Parliament premises with his own eyes, "If the militants had succeeded in entering the Parliament building and taking MPs captive, the course of history may have changed."

Apparently referring to the media attention given to threats by militants to the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus, he said, "When someone comes to kill others with weapons, we talk too much about them. But when someone fights with this life to protect others, we don't talk much about it. This is not good," Patil said.