New Delhi: Major Anup Joseph Manjali was on Saturday awarded the second-highest peacetime gallantry award Kirti Chakra by President Pranab Mukherjee for killing three foreign militants in Jammu and Kashmir. 12 defence personnel were awarded the Shaurya Charkra for their acts of bravery including Captain A Rahul Ramesh and Naik Krishna Kumar who were given the honour posthumously.
Manjali, who was deployed in Jammu and Kashmir with the 24 Rashtriya Rifles battalion, had established a close cordon around five foreign terrorists while leading a counter-terrorist operation there on October 1, 2012. "The officer displaying raw courage crawled up to the entrance of the Dhok and lobbed a hand grenade to flush out terrorists resulting in elimination of one terrorist on the spot," his citation read.
When the other terrorists attempted to escape, he chased them and "shot dead two more dreaded terrorists from a distance of approximately twenty meters in a most daring act." Naik Krishan Kumar was given the award for his role in a crisis situation in Congo where the Indian Army is involved as part of the UN Peacekeeping Mission.
Captain A Rahul Ramesh, an Engineer with the Border Roads Organisation, was conferred the award for saving the life of his colleague while carrying out a bridge construction operation in Uttarakhand in 2012. The Shaurya Chakra awardees include Captain Manish Singh of 9 Para (SF), who was badly injured in a terrorist operation in Jammu and Kashmir.
The officer received the award from the President on a wheel chair. 10 senior officers were awarded the PVSM while 31 of them were given the AVSM. A number of senior serving and retired defence officers were present on the occasion including former IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi. He is facing a CBI inquiry at the moment for his alleged role in the VVIP chopper scam.
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