Akshay Kumar donates Rs 9 lakh each to families of CRPF men killed in a recent Naxal ambush

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has donated Rs 9 lakh each to the families of the 12 CRPF personnel who were killed in a recent Naxal ambush in Chhattisgarh.

Officials said that, 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, according to a PTI report.

They said the Ministry, accepting Kumar's request, directed the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to share the bona fide bank account numbers of the families of the slain personnel. Kumar, they said, transferred Rs 9 lakh each to the bank accounts yesterday.

"Kumar's gesture exhibits his patriotism and devotion towards the country in general and the CRPF in particular," the paramilitary force said in a statement.

Twelve 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 actor of 'Khiladi' fame 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 a smartphone app so that any citizen can donate money to the needy families of those jawans or officers who get killed in the line of duty.

This is not the first time that Khiladi Kumar has come in in full support of his country. Akshay had donated Rs 50 lakh towards the Maharashtra government-led initiative, the Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyaan, that aims at making villages drought-proof by developing water harvesting techniques, including the construction of ponds.

Earlier, on the eve of Republic Day, Akshay Kumar had proposed an app for the public to transfer money to the families of martyred jawans. He had also suggested that the country comes together to help the families of the martyrs from the national defence and armed forces financially, irrespective of the compensations the government takes care of.

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