Laqini Bayika, a border patrolman in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China who died in January while rescuing a drowning child, was posthumously awarded the title "role model of the times" on March 3.
Born in a small village in Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, the only Tajik autonomous county in China, he was elected as a national lawmaker in 2018, the only Tajik deputy in the National People's Congress (NPC) at that time. In 2020, he was awarded as "national model worker."
On January 4, while taking part in a training course at a college in Kashgar, the 41-year-old saw a boy fall through the ice in a frozen lake and plunged in. He saved the child from drowning but could not come out of the freezing water.
His suggestions about improving local people's wellbeing were presented at the NPC session this month.