Kiran Bedi awarded Baba Farid Award of Honesty

Moga, Sep 23: The first woman IPS officer and Ramon Magsaysay Award winner Kiran Bedi was conferred upon the Baba Farid Award of Honesty 2007 at Faridkot this morning.

In a religious congrgation held at Gurdwara Godari Sahib Ms Bedi was given the award, while included cash of Rs one lakh, a citation and shawl by Sajada Nashin Baba Raahid Farid of Rajabpur.

At the function, she nareraed some of the memorable experience in her service. About the ban on smoking in the Tihar Jail, She said, ''When the ban was announced in the Tihar Jail, the smokers went on a fast until death and threatened that they would hang themselves from the beams of the ceilling.

However, their threat did not deter me. Having made the decision, I was determined to stick to it. It took around ten days for things to settle down, and smoking has never been allowed in the prison since''.

''I am proud to say that Tihar is the only prison, which does not allow smoking,'' she added.

The transformation that took place in the Tihar prison, began with her mission statement to help prisoners not to return to the prisons.

Ms Bedi also visited Gurdwara Chilla Baba Farid where she paid obesisance and was given Saropa by the chairman of the society Inderjit Singh Khalsa.

Later, at the function, the society also bestowed the Bhagat Singh Award for service to humanity to a teacher couple, Ajit Singh and his wife Satpaul Kaur of Maqbool Pura Amritsar and a teacher from Faridkot, Ashok Gupta.

Ajit Singh and his wife Satpaul Kaur, who have been earlier awarded with Harmony Award by the Dalai Lama, were given the award for their efforts towards the uplift of widows and orphans and their drive to save hundreds of youths from drug addiction.

The other awardee Ashok Gupta had adopted 20 orphans of drug addictors.

UNI