As many as 20 officers of the Jammu and Kashmir Police have received the Kendriya Grih Mantri Dakshata Padak from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for their role in Operation Mahadev.
Operation Mahadev was carried out on the outskirts of Srinagar district to neutralise the terrorists involved in the killing of 26 people in the Baisaran valley of Pahalgam in April this year.
The officers were part of the counter-terror operation in which three foreign (Pakistani) militants were killed, three months after the deadly April 22 terror attack.
One of the slain militants, Suleiman alias Asif, was identified as the key planner of the Pahalgam attack, along with Jibran and Hamza Afghani. Jibran was also involved in the Sonamarg Tunnel attack in October 2024.
During the operation, security forces recovered one US-made M4 carbine rifle, two AK rifles, and other ammunition.
The award recipients are IG Kashmir Vidhi Kumar Birdi, DIG Central Kashmir Pande Rajiv Omprakash, SSP Srinagar G.V. Sundeep Chakraborty, SP Cargo Tanweer Ahmed Dar, SP ZohebTanveer, DSP Vikram Nag, DSP MubashirNaiz, DSP Shakir Hassan, Inspector Taseer Hamid, SI Anchal Singh, SI Firoz Ahmad Dar, ASI Basharat Rasool Shah, ASI Mohammad Shafi, HC Javed Ahmed, HC Sandeep Khujuria, SGCT Varun Singh, SGCT Mehmood Khan, CT Suhail Abbas, and CT Basharat Qadir.
Also Read: People misled over J&K statehood issue: LG Sinha