Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh commended Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar for his generosity, after the star donated Rs nine lakh each to the families of the 12 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel, who were killed during an encounter with the Naxalites on March 11 in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district.
Officials said, soon after the incident, the actor approached the Union Home Ministry with a request to obtain the bank account numbers of the family members of the jawans who were killed in the March 11 ambush as he wanted to make a monetary donation to them.
They said the Ministry, accepting Kumar's request, directed the CRPF to share the bonafide bank account numbers of the families of the slain personnel.
Kumar, they said, transferred Rs 9 lakh each in the bank accounts yesterday.
"Kumar's gesture exhibits his patriotism and devotion towards the country in general and CRPF in particular," the paramilitary force said in a statement.
12 personnel were killed in a deadly ambush in Chhattisgarh's worst Naxal-hit district of Sukma on March 11 when they were out on a patrol.
The deceased CRPF personnel have been identified as Inspector Jagjit Singh, Assistant Sub-inspectors H B Bhatt and Narender Kumar Singh, head constables Jagdish Prasad Vishnoi and P R Minde and constables Mangesh Pal Pandey, Rampal Singh Yadav, Goraknath, Nand Kumar Patra, Satish Kumar Verma, K Shankar and Suresh Kumar.
The troops belonged to the 219th battalion of the force deployed in the state for conducting anti-Naxal operations.
The 'Khiladi' fame actor had also recently met Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi expressing his desire to contribute to the security forces and also with a plan to develop an smartphone app (application) so that any citizen can donate money to the family of those needy jawans or officers who get killed in the line of duty.
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