By Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

New Delhi, Jan 26: The Jammu and Kashmir Police have retained the distinction of bagging the highest number of gallantry medals among all States, Union Territories and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) across the country on this years Republic Day.

Fighting the 32-year-long armed insurgency, the J&K Police have got as many as 115 Police Medals for Gallantry (PMGs) announced by the Government of India a day ahead of the Republic Day on Tuesday. The next highest slot has been retained by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) with 30 PMGs.

Only seven States and two Union Territories (UTs) figure among the recipients of this year's gallantry medals.

While Chhattisgarh has bagged 10 PMGs, nine have gone to Odisha and seven to Maharashtra. Madhya Pradesh and Delhi have bagged three each, Jharkhand two and Uttar Pradesh and Manipur one each.

Among the CAPFs, CRPF with 30 PMGs is followed by the Indo-Tibetan Border Policy (ITBP) and SSB who have taken three each. The Border Security Force (BSF) has bagged two medals.

In J&K Police, 46 medals have gone to the Police officers/officials who had already taken PMG once, two times or three times.

Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Jammu Mukesh Singh, DIG Udhampur Mohammad Suleiman Choudhary, DIG Rajouri Vivek Gupta, SSPs Sridhar Patel, Amritpal Singh, Mohammad Aslam and Tahir Bhatti are among this year's recipients of PMGs.

On last year's Independence Day, Jammu and Kashmir stood first in bagging the prestigious PMGs. Out of 215 medals, the J&K Police had received as many as 81 for the year 2020. The recipients included 2 officers of the rank of DIG, 5 SSPs, 5 SPs, and ASPs, 16 DSPs besides 6 Inspectors, 8 Sub Inspectors (SIs) and 2 Assistant Sub Inspectors (ASIs). Thirty-five J&K Police personnel of the ranks of Head Constables, Constables and Selection Grade Constables and one Follower were declared as recipients of PMG on the Independence Day 2020.