Shaurya Chakra for cop who didn’t bend in riots

Shot through the thigh, both his arms broken by the angry crowd, Rathwa ensured that the family was taken away to safety. It took all his strength and courage. ‘‘I pleaded with the mob that I had children with me and that they were innocent, but they kept shouting at me that these people were Muslims and they had to be killed,’’ Rathwa recalls.

On March 5, he was told by his superiors to rush to Melu village to save a family trapped in the riots. With resources spread out thinly, Rathwa found himself facing the tribals numbering around 200 without a police vehicle—he had to borrow a civilian vehicle, a tempo—and with a hastily put together team of available personnel.

‘‘I had two members of the local village protection force and two Home Guard constables, besides a young police constable recruit fresh from the training academy. With everone heavily committed, this was the only force that I could put together at that moment,’’ Rathwa says.

‘‘The moment we arrived at the village, they started stoning us. We had to fight through the mob to enter the house. I managed to send off a few people with their belongings in the tempo and pushed two girls and another woman into my jeep, and we started off for the police station.’’

But by the time Rathwa managed to extricate the family, the mob had barricaded the road with stones and barbed wire. ‘‘They started throwing stones at us. Others came out armed with meat cleavers and knives,’’ remembers Rathwa.

With the mob closing in, Rathwa fired a few shots in the air. However, the numbers made it impossible to break through. ‘‘Someone hit me from the back, others attacked me with blunt weapons, breaking both my arms. Someone grabbed my rifle and shot at me, but I was lucky and the bullet went through my thigh.’’

Bleeding from his wound, with both arms broken, Rathwa managed to keep the mob at bay and jumped into the jeep. ‘‘I ordered my driver to run over anyone who came in our way so that I could get away with the family.’’ Driving over the stones and barbed wire Rathwa finally managed to break out of the village and set off for the police station.

Back in Chote Udepur police station, Rathwa was informed that the family members in the tempo had also been attacked but managed to escape. Those who he had rescued were slightly injured, but recovered soon after.

One and a half years later, on August 15 last year, Rathwa heard he had been shortlisted for the Shaurya Chakra.