New Delhi, Aug. 14: A Meghalaya former deputy superintendent of police, Raymond Philip Diengdoh, has been conferred the Ashok Chakra posthumously.

Diengdoh was killed while fighting a combined force of HNLC and NLFT militants in Ri Bhoi district in November last year. This is the first time that a Meghalaya police official has been decorated with the nation’s highest peacetime award. He asked the militants, armed with AK-47 and AK-56 rifles and explosives, to surrender but they opened fire. Diengdoh killed one of the militants before a bullet hit him. He bled to death on the way to hospital.

An Orissa police officer, assistant commandant Pramod Kumar Satapathy, who was killed fighting the Naxalites who had raided state armouries, is another posthumous recipient of this year’s Ashok Chakra. Satapathy, the training-in-charge of a special operations group, led about 20 policemen on bikes to Nayagarh on February 15 after learning of raids on an armoury and police stations close to Bhubaneswar. A defence attache, the counsellor and the two Indo Tibetan Border Police constables killed in last month’s suicide attack on the Kabul embassy have been named among the posthumous recipients of the Kirti Chakra.

The victims of the Kabul suicide attack among the 124 gallantry awards announced today for armed and paramilitary forces are Brig. Ravi Datt Mehta (posthumous Kirti Chakra), V. Venkateswara Rao, counsellor (posthumous Kirti Chakra) and the ITBP constables.

The list includes nine Kirti chakras, 18 Shaurya Chakras, one Bar to Sena Medal, 87 Sena Medals, six Nao Sena (navy) Medals, one Vayu Sena Medal, and five President’s Tatrakshak (coast guard) Medals.

CRPF inspector-general Sunil Kumar Jain, a 1984-batch IPS officer from the Assam and Meghalaya cadre, was pulled out from Srinagar on Thursday morning to calm tempers following criticism over the paramilitary force’s handling of the unrest.

His name was also abruptly deleted from the list of those awarded the President’s medal for distinguished service. Jain had made it to the Independence Day honours list for a series of daring operations carried out under his command during his posting as inspector-general (Kashmir).