IPS officer Ajay Sahni to get his third President's Medal
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A 2009-batch Uttar Pradesh cadre officer, Sahni is known as an 'encounter specialist' in the police force.
He was picked for the award for showing 'exceptional courage' during a high-risk armed operation in Meerut on Republic Day (Jan 26, 2020). The President's Medal citation describes the 2020 Meerut operation as "a do-or-die situation in open combat."
It praises Sahni's "rarest among rare" gallantry, leadership, and dedication under direct threat to life.
In 2020, Sahni, as SSP Meerut, received information about two armed robbers on a motorcycle committing multiple robberies in Transport Nagar police station limits.
When intercepted, the criminals opened fire at police and sped towards the Meerut–Delhi Bypass (NH-58).Sahni, along with the Crime Branch's surveillance team, moved to cut off their escape. The suspects, when cornered, opened fire, injuring station officer Dinesh Kumar and head constable Manoj Kumar.
While a bullet nearly struck his chest, Sahni led the counterattack. In the ensuing gunfight, Chand alias Kale, a notorious gangster with a Rs 1 lakh bounty and over 40 cases, was killed.
The two cops who were injured were also awarded gallantry medals.
In Feb 2020, he led the encounter in Meerut in which Shiv Shakti Naidu — the kingpin of Delhi's notorious Naidu gang, involved in an Rs 8 crore heist and carrying a Rs 1 lakh reward — was fatally wounded.
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Naidu was wanted in over a dozen cases in Delhi alone and faced multiple cases across Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, and Rajasthan. In 2021, he was awarded a gallantry medal for this encounter.
In 2020, Sahni was awarded for eliminating Sujit Singh alias Budhwa, leader of the D-9 gang and a Rs 50,000 bounty criminal who escaped from Rampur Jail and was hiding in Azamgarh.
Sahni is credited with dismantling the entire D-9 gang, one of eastern Uttar Pradesh's most feared criminal syndicates.
During his 2016 posting in Siddharthnagar, police, under his leadership, apprehended several members of the infamous Bawaria gang after a fierce gunfight in which a bullet struck his jacket.
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