Mohan Lal tried to stop suicide bomber carrying 200 kg explosives

An Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) who lost his life in the Pulwama terror attack in 2019 was awarded the President’s Police Medal for Gallantry posthumously on the eve of Republic Day on Monday.

ASI Mohan Lal “chased and fired” at an explosives-laden car that rammed into a bus carrying force personnel in Pulwama on February 14, 2019, killing him and 39 others on board.

Only two police personnel have been decorated with the highest police medal for gallantry this time — CRPF’s Lal and late Jharkhand Police ASI Banua Oraon.

Fifty-year-old Lal was the picket commander of the CRPF road opening party deployed near the BSNL Tower at Lethpora in Pulwama on the Jammu-Srinagar highway when the dastardly terror attack was carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists. Driven by suicide bomber Adil Ahmed Dar, the car was carrying over 200 kgs of explosives.

A CRPF officer said, "Lal, after letting a few vehicles of the cavalcade pass, noticed a car running alongside the convoy. He signalled the driver to stop and chased the car, but could not match the speed. He fired at the car before it rammed into a CRPF bus and led to a massive blast.”

Deputy Commandant Rajesh Kumar Luthra, Indo-Tibetan Border Police, has been awarded for displaying courage and presence of mind to defuse a face-off with Chinese troops in Ladakh in July 2019. Another officer of the border guarding force, Assistant Commandant Anurag Kumar Singh, has been awarded a gallantry medal for the second time for a counter-terrorist operation in Jammu and Kashmir in 2017.

Courtesy: Daily Tribune: 25th January 2021