The J&K Lieutenant Governor’s administration on Monday, in an official order, decided to replace the embossing of National Conference (NC) founder and first Prime Minister of erstwhile J&K from the police medals, with the national emblem.
“It is hereby ordered that in modification to Para 4 of the Jammu & Kashmir Police Medal Scheme, the Sher-i-Kashmir Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah embossed on one side of the medal shall be replaced with “The National Emblem of Government of India” and the other side inscribed with the J&K State Emblem shall be inscribed as “Jammu and Kashmir Police Medal for Gallantry” and “Jammu and Kashmir Police Medal for Meritorious Service’ in case of Gallantry/Meritorious Medal, as the case may be,” reads the order issued by Principal Secretary, Home Department, R.K. Goyal.
Earlier, in 2020, the administration dropped Abdullah’s birth anniversary from the list of holidays and removed his title ‘Sher-i-Kashmir’ from the police awards. The words like ‘Sher-i-Kashmir Police Medal for Gallantry’ and ‘Sher-i-Kashmir police medal for meritorious service’ shall henceforth be read as ‘Jammu and Kashmir Police Medal for Gallantry’ and ‘Jammu and Kashmir Police Medal for Meritorious Service’, reads the order issued in 2020.
Mr. Abdullah, who earned the title Sher-i-Kashmir (Lion of Kashmir) for working towards a secular and democratic State, was the main political figure in J&K in 1947, who supported the accession of the State with the Union of India and rejected Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s two-nation theory.
