By Rajnish Singh New Delhi, Aug 12 : Perseverance pays. This was proved once again when the "Union Home Minister's Medal for Excellence in Investigation" for 2020 was awarded to 121 police officers including CBI DSP Mukesh Sharma for solving the difficult case of the rape-cum murder of a Dalit girl by an Uttar Pradesh Police Constable. In February end, a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, sentenced the then Uttar Pradesh Police Constable Ateeq Ahmed to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of a teenage girl inside Nighasan police station in Lakhimpur Kheri district in 2011. Five months after the court's verdict, the Central government on Wednesday awarded Deputy Commissioner of Police (DSP) Mukesh Sharma (SC-II branch of CBI, New Delhi) the prestigious 'Union Home Minister's Medal for Excellence in Investigation' for 2020 -- an award which was instituted in 2018 with the objective to promote high professional standards of investigation and to recognise such excellence. It took nine years to conclude the case but the credit goes to the investigation done by DSP Mukesh. Based on evidence collected by the CBI, the court awarded life imprisonment to the accused Constable and also sentenced Inayat Ullah Khan (the then Circle Officer) to imprisonment for five years for trying to hush up the case. The CBI had registered the case on December 20, 2011, on the request of the Uttar Pradesh Government and taken over the investigation of FIR No. 706/2011, earlier registered at Police Station Nighasan in Lakhimpur Kheri (Uttar Pradesh) on the allegations of rape and murder of a victim inside the police station premises. The CBI filed a chargesheet against four accused but the court acquitted two. In the judgment, the court found constable Ahmed guilty under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code. The then circle officer, Khan, was also found guilty under Section 201. Ateeq was posted as the gunner of circle officer Khan. Those who were acquitted are constables Shiv Kumar and Uma Shanker. On June 10, 2011, the mother of a 14-year-old girl had lodged an FIR with the Nighasan police station saying that her daughter had taken a buffalo for grazing in the field but it crossed the boundary of the police station and entered its premises. As the girl did not return for long, the complainant went inside the police station to look for her and found her daughter hanging from a tree. The mother had seen injuries on the body of the girl, and it appeared that she was raped and was then hanged to make it look like a suicide. Besides DSP Mukesh Sharma, 14 other CBI officers have been awarded the "Union Home Minister's Medal for Excellence in Investigation" 2020 for their excellent investigation in various other cases. They include CBI Superintendent of Police Cephas Kalyan Pakerla, who was awarded for solving the I Monetary Advisory (IMA) Chit Fund case in Bengaluru; and Assistant Superintendent of Police Subhash Ramrup Singh (SCB branch, Mumbai) for solving the Narendra Dabholkar murder case. On the basis of the Dabholkar murder case, investigators got clues to three other high profile cases -- the September 5, 2017 Gauri Lankesh murder, the August 30, 2015 M.M. Kalburgi murder case, and the February 20, 2015 Govind Pansare murder case. The other CBI officers selected by the Ministry of Home Affairs for the award are: Deputy Superintendent of Police Rajan Kumar Jha, and Inspectors Perwez Alam, Rakesh Ranjan, Vijaya Vaishnavi, Prashant Kandpal, Vibha Kumari, Parvender Kumar Mathur, Duli Chand Yadav, K.Bindhu, Ashish Anand, Jyotirmoyee Majhi and Shiv Kumar Jha. The medal has been awarded to 121 police personnel across the country, including the CBI. Those awarded include 15 CBI officials, 10 each from the Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra Police, eight from the Uttar Pradesh Police, seven each from the Kerala and West Bengal Police, and the remaining from other states and Union Territories. (Rajnish Singh can be contacted at rajnish.s@ians.in) /IANS