Police Commemoration Day 2026: Amit Shah Honours Fallen Police

On 21 October 2026, Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah paid homage to police personnel who died on duty at the National Police Memorial in New Delhi, and addressed the Police Commemoration Day ceremony. At the same event he flagged off a countrywide motorcycle rally built around the message Fight against Drugs.

Why the day falls on 21 October

The observance goes back to 1959. On 21 October that year, ten men of the Central Reserve Police Force were killed at the remote Hot Springs post in Ladakh while holding their ground against an attack by Chinese troops. They had resolved that not an inch of Indian soil would pass into foreign hands. Police forces across India have marked the date ever since in memory of personnel who fall in the line of duty.

The memorial and its names

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the National Police Memorial in 2018. The sacrifice of 36,852 police personnel is honoured there, and the Home Minister said the site has become a place of reverence for citizens who travel to it to pay their respects. The memorial was built so that later generations of police officers would draw inspiration from it.

Figures the Home Minister placed on record

Shah called 2026 a landmark year for the Indian police. He said peace now prevails in the three internal-security hotspots the country struggled with for decades, Kashmir, the North-East and the Left-Wing Extremism belt, and credited the CRPF, its CoBRA Battalion and the Chhattisgarh Police for ending the Naxal problem. He added that the recently concluded West Bengal Assembly elections were completed without a single death, a benchmark set by the Central Armed Police Forces.

Who was present

Members of Parliament Krishna Prasad Tenneti and Rajiv Kumar, Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Intelligence Bureau Director Mahesh Dixit, Indo-Tibetan Border Police Director General Shatrujeet Kapoor and the chiefs of the other Central Armed Police Forces attended. Earlier in the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also paid tribute, describing the contribution of police personnel as invaluable.

The anti-drugs rally

About 90 riders are taking part, drawn from states and union territories including Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi, from the CRPF, CISF, BSF, SSB, ITBP and NSG, and from the RPF, NDRF and NIA. Riders from every part of the country will converge on Ekta Nagar in Gujarat to join the Ekta Parade-2026. Shah urged every police force to carry the Nasha Mukt Bharat roadmap to the ground.