Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced an award of Rs 50,000 for Sagar district’s Head Constable Abhishek Patel for saving the lives of 400 children. The Chief Minister lauded Patel for his dutifulness and courage.
It may be noted that an anonymous caller informed Dial-100 at around 12:50 pm on Friday that a cannonball was lying near the Middle School at Chitora village in Sagar district.
This information was passed on to FRV of Surkhi police station and was asked to check. At that time FRV was near Berkhedi village which is nearly 5 km away from Chitora.
Despite this, FRV reached Chitora by 1:08 pm. At that time there were 400 children in the school and a crowd had also gathered on hearing the news. The cannonball was hot and people were scared thinking it was a huge bomb.
Head Constable Abhishek Patel immediately got the school vacated, but taking into account the risk involved, he picked up and carried the nearly 10 kg cannonball on his shoulders and started running.
He threw it into a nullah about one km away from the school. This way head constable Abhishek Patel saved the lives of 400 school children.
Head constable Abhishek Patel carried a bomb — weighing 10 kilograms and 12 inch long — on his shoulder and ran with it for at least a kilometer to dispose it far away from human habitation.
Patel was part of the team which had rushed to Chitora village after an alert was raised regarding an abandoned bomb found lying in the background of the school.
While police team and school administration was thinking what to do, the 40-year-old Patel lifted the bomb on his shoulders and ran towards open area away from human habitat.
“My only objective was to carry the bomb away from school and residential area. I was part of an operation few months back where a similar kind of bomb was spotted. Then we were informed that such bombs can create heavy damage within an area of 500 meters diameter,” said Patel.