New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday paid tributes to police personnel, who lost their lives in the line of duty, at the National Police Memorial in the national capital on the occasion of ‘Police Commemoration Day’.
Shah said that the sacrifice of police personnel for the motherland would always be remembered.
“On ‘Police Commemoration Day’, Nation salutes the valour of our police personnel who laid down their lives in the line of duty. Their sacrifice for the motherland would always be remembered,” the Home Minister said in a tweet.
‘Police Commemoration Day’ is observed every year in memory of ten valiant Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) killed during patrol duty in an ambush by heavily armed Chinese troops in Hot Springs, Ladakh on October 21, 1959.
To honour the police personnel who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty for national security, the idea of setting up a National Police Memorial in Delhi was approved by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1992.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the National Police Memorial to the nation on Police Commemoration Day on October 21, 2018. The Memorial gives Police Forces a sense of national identity, pride, unity of purpose, common history and destiny.
The Memorial includes a Central Sculpture, the Wall of Valour and an underground Museum. As one enters the site, the flower-laden ramparts with two large symmetrically placed bowls, laced with flowers, symbolize the everlasting spirit of Police martyrs and their dedication.
According to Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai, a total of 307 Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and Assam Rifles (AR) personnel sacrificed their lives in the line of duty for the nation in the last five years.
Rai said this in a Rajya Sabha, mentioning that 27 of the 307 personnel sacrificed their lives in 2021; 39 in 2020; 90 in 2019; 75 in 2018; and 76 in 2018.
Of the 307 troops, 180 were deployed to Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), 49 to Border Security Force (BSF), 37 in Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), seven each in Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), and 27 in Assam Rifles.