Home Minister's Medal for Excellence awarded to 152 police officers; includes NIA officers who solved Pulwama attack case

New Delhi, August 12: In the major development, the Ministry of Home Affairs has released the list of police personnel who will be awarded the "Union Home Minister's Medal for Excellence in Investigation" for the year 2021 in recognition of their "excellence in the investigation" of a crime.

As many as 152 investigators from across the country have got the medals. In a statement, the Home Ministry said that 15 awardees are from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) while five are National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials. On the other hand, five awardees are from Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).

Among the personnel receiving these medals for excellence, 15 are from CBI, 11 each from Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra Police, 10 from UP, 9 from Kerala and Rajasthan Police, 8 are from Tamil Nadu Police, 7 from Bihar, 6 each from Gujarat, Karnataka, and Delhi Police. These include 28 women police officials, said the MHA statement.

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The list also included the name of NIA officers who solved the Pulwama attack case. Rakesh Balwal, a superintendent of police with the National Investigation Agency (NIA), and an inspector in his team, Neeraj Sharma, have been awarded Union Home Minister’s medal for excellence in the investigation for 2021. The team solved the 2019 Pulwama attack conspiracy case, in which the agency initially struggled to get any leads for 10 months.

NCB's Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede is also among the list of awardees. Notably, the medal was constituted in 2018 with the objective to promote high professional standards of investigation of crime and to recognise such excellence in an investigation by investigating officers.