Sarvottam Jeevan Rakshak award for Rukhsana, Narender Kaushik

Narender Kaushik, a resident of Delhi who died while saving people trapped in a fire on March 13 last year, and Rukhsana Kosser of Jammu and Kashmir, who fought off three Laskar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists who entered their house on the night of September 27, will get the Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak Awards for 2009.

The Jeevan Raksha Padak series of awards are given to a person for meritorious act of humane nature in saving the life of a person.

The award is given in three categories - Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak, Uttam Jeevan Raksha Padak and Jeevan Raksha Padak.

The citation for the award said Mr Kaushik, who will be conferred the award posthumously, a senior technician with Pearl Drinks, acted selflessly and exhibited exemplary courage and bravery in saving the lives of five persons from a burning shop and laid down his own life in the process.

The citation for Rukhsana, who has since been appointed to the Jammu and Kashmir police, said she and her brother Ajaz Ahmed exhibited tremendous courage and bravery to save the lives of their family members.

The dreaded militants were beating Rukhsana's father and other family members. She and her brother caught hold of axes and sticks and attacked the miscreants, injuring two of them. She and her brother then snatched the weapons from the injured militants and fired at them, killing one of them on the spot. The other two managed to escape.

Besides these two, President Pratibha Patil also approved the conferment of Uttam Jeevan Rakshak Padak on seven people and Jeevan Rakshak Padak on 44 others.

The winners of the Uttam Jeevan Rakshak Padak include Mr Karambir Singh Kang, General Manager of Taj Hotel in Mumbai, who helped security forces in the operation to fight the terrorists who had attacked the hotel on November 26, 2008. Even as his family remained trapped on the 6th floor of the hotel, Mr Kang guided the rescue teams and the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) through the maze of corridors to vital positions such as the CCTV room and the telephone exchange room.

The citation said Mr Kang, who had no access to his family as the terrorists were present on the 6th floor, put aside his personal fears and commanded the evacuation operations. He led the team right till the afternoon of November 28 and made sure that all guests and employees had been evacuated. But he lost his wife Neeti and their two children Uday and Samar in the terrorist attack.

The awardees also included Rajan Kamble, another employee of the Taj Hotel. He was on duty near the lobby of the hotel on November 26, 2008 when he saw the terrorists burst in with guns blazing. He and his colleagues quickly helped in shifting guests through the service corridors to the chambers for their safety. When the guests were walking in a single file, a gunman suddenly appeared from behind. Kamble promptly moved to the end of the line to shield the guests from the bullets. He was wounded and some of the guests pulled him to the nearby room and waited for commandos to rescue them. He was rescued after 12 hours but succumbed to his injuries a week later.

The other Uttam Jeevan Rakshak Padak winners include Rukhsana's brother Ajaz Ahmed. The list also includes Syed Areef Sujauddin (posthumous) of Andhra Pradesh, Mushtaq Ahmed of Jammu and Kashmir, Oomen Antony (posthumous) of Kerala, and Prachi Santosh Sen of Madhya Pradesh.

Sujauddin had, on March 14, 2008, jumped into a canal to save an 18-year-old girl who was drowning. He managed to save her by pushing her to the bank but was swept away by the waters.

Mushtaq Ahmed, a special police officer, informed a police post at Arnas that some terrorists had attacked his house with grenades and bullets. A police party that rushed to the scene found him retaliating to the fire of the terrorists with the self-loading rifle provided to him by the authorities. He managed to chase away the terrorists. Two of his family members lost their lives in the incident.

Oomen Antony from Korandikkadu, Munnar, an inmate of a Government Juvenile Home and a class IX student, was on his way to a state level children's literature camp at Thrissur. While taking a bath in the river Nila on the way on January 30, 2007, another boy, Sudhakar from Thiruvananthauram started drowning. Oomen jumped into the river and saved the boy but died in the process.

Prachi saved her four-year-old brother Manas, 13-year-old sister Richa and friends Anay (4) and Shefali (11) from being electrocuted. The others escaped with minor injuries, but Prachi herself was severely injured in the incident on the terrace of their house. Her left hand was badly burnt and her fingers had to be removed surgically later.

Prachi has already won the Geeta Chopra Award under the National Bravery Award 2008 as well as the Maharana Pratap Bravery Award conferred by the Madhya Pradesh Government for this act.

The awards carry a medal, a certificate signed by the Home Minister and a demand draft for the lump sum monetary allowance. The allowance is Rs 75,000 for the Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak, Rs 45,000 for the Uttam Jeevan Raksha Padak and Rs 30,000 for the Jeevan Raksha Padak.

The winners of the Jeevan Raksha Padak are:

Himachal Pradesh: Bali Ram, Layak Ram

Karnataka: Rukasana Banu

Kerala: P P Sikhi, P Rajasekaran, Sreeja V V, Faseeb K, Thahir, Vijishna K R, Manjusha A, Magesh A, Johnson V Sunny, Dinu K G, Vineeth Kumar M U,

Maharashtra: Hemant Talim, Boris Mario De Rego, Kaizad Noshir Kamdin,Sadanand Patil, Thomas Varghese, Vijay Banja Rao (all posthumous), Anil Dattatray Damankar, Mallika Jagad, Philip Rodrigues, Purunanand Petwal, Sunil Kudyadi, Vishal Suryaji Patil

Meghalaya: Silver Kharbani, Medaplang Dkhar

Mizoram: Lianchia, Joseph Vanlalhruaia

Punjab: Gurdial Singh, Mohinder Singh (Posthumous)

Rajasthan: Zaheen Mateen (Posthumous), Hina Qureshi

Uttar Pradesh: Ranu (Posthumous), Purshottam Kashyap, Shahanshah

Delhi: Subhash Chandra Meena, Narendra Prasad (Posthumous)

Tamil Nadu: G Raj Mohan

Haryana: Satender Singh

Chhattisgarh: Bhishma Singh Bargah, Saraswati Dewangan

Manipur: Yumkhaibam Addison Singh

NNN