Police Commemoration Day observed on October 21 in memory of policemen killed in 1959 Ladakh attack

Police Commemoration Day is observed every year on October 21. The day is in memory of police officers who laid down their lives while protecting the country's security and its citizens. It traces back to an incident in 1959, when Chinese soldiers attacked Indian police on the India-China border in Ladakh and 10 policemen were killed. The day is observed to remember their sacrifice.

On the occasion, police forces across the country hold various programmes. Tributes are paid to the policemen who died in the line of duty, and their families are honoured. The police work day and night for the country's internal security, and their contribution to society is very important.

Several significant events in national and world history fell on October 21. In 1854, Florence Nightingale and 38 other nurses were sent to provide medical services in the Crimean War. In 1879, Thomas Edison applied for a patent for the design of the light bulb. The Swiss Social Democratic Party was formed in 1888. In 1934, Jayaprakash Narayan founded the Congress Socialist Party.

In 1943, the Azad Hind Fauj, led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, formed the first independent government of India. Women in France won the right to vote in 1945. In 1951, Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in Delhi. In 1983, the metre was defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

In 1989, Sukhdev Singh and Harvinder Singh, the killers of General Arun Kumar Vaidya, were sentenced to death. In 1992, at the 11th Tashkent International Film Festival, Aparna Sen won the best actress award for her role in the Bengali film Mahaprithivi. In 1999, the filmmaker B. R. Chopra was announced as the recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. In 2011, President Barack Obama announced that the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq would be completed by the end of the year.

Among those born on this date are the Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel, who instituted the Nobel Prizes (1833; died December 10, 1896); lawyer and politician Krishna Singh (1887; died January 31, 1961); singer and composer Ram Phatak (1917; died September 26, 2002); and Dharmabhaskar G. N. Koparkar (1920). Also born on this date were Hindi film actor and producer Shammi Kapoor (1931; died August 14, 2011), Kashmiri politician Farooq Abdullah (1937) and Benjamin Netanyahu (1949), the ninth Prime Minister of Israel.

Among those who died on this date are King Charles VI of France (1422; born September 16, 1380); Tamil poet and composer Muthuswami Dikshitar (1835; born March 24, 1775); and Jnanpith-winning Kannada poet Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre (1981; born January 31, 1896, in Dharwad, Karnataka). Others who died on this date are Indian philosopher and writer Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar (1990; born May 21, 1921), American astrologer and author Linda Goodman (1995; born April 9, 1925), poet and translator A. Ayyappan (2010; born October 27, 1949) and film director, screenwriter and producer Yash Chopra (2012; born September 27, 1932).