Pune:
The National Disaster Response Force or NDRF wants martyr status for its nine men who died in the helicopter crash while carrying out rescue operations in flood-hit Uttarakhand last month.
The commandant of the 5th battalion at Talegaon near Pune, Alok Awasthi is peeved with the government for discriminating against the men who laid down their lives for the country, simply on the basis of the colour of their uniform.
Speaking to NDTV, Alok Awasthi said he has appealed to the government to grant martyr status to the nine who were among the 20 killed in the crash.
While the five members of the Indian Air Force have already been given the status of martyrs, the nine NDRF men and six personnel of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police or ITBP who died in the same crash have just been mentioned as dead.
A visibly upset Awasthi said, "In India, the martyr status is applicable only to the Army, Navy and Air Force personnel and there is no provision for pronouncing the Central Armed Police Forces personnel, who also lose their lives in the line of duty, as martyrs."
Awasthi, however, is thankful to the Maharashtra government for according state funeral to the two NDRF men from the state. "All top officials were there at their funeral. But there should be a policy that any person irrespective of the force he is working for, if he dies fighting for the country, he automatically should be given the martyr status," he says.
Apart from the respect the family gets, a martyr status also accords other benefits such as a compensation of up to Rs 25 lakh. Awasthi is hopeful that the government will soon come up with a decision giving equal rights and respect to the dead if they lay their lives for the country.