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MUMBAI
Soon after midnight on November 26, Mumbai lost three of its finest police officers: chief of the Anti-Terrorism Squad Hemant Karkare, Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Kamte and Inspector Vijay Salaskar.All three were killed in Rang Bhavan Lane near Cama Hospital in a Mumbai Police Toyota Qualis. These three deaths were the first time that night when the horror of the attacks hit home across the nation.
A reconstruction of the two-hour sequence of events that led to this, based on interviews and records
accessed by The Indian Express, shows how and why these officers walked into a blind alley. It underlines how panic in the force clouded information exchange — Karkare and his team neither got the message that the Cama encounter had ended 15 minutes earlier nor that the terrorists were on the loose down the road they were on.
10.30 pm: Additional Commissioner of Police Sadanand Date and his wireless operator collected their bulletproof jackets and carbines from Malabar Hill police station. Via a detour of the Breach Candy area where the US Consulate is, they headed towards CST hearing that the terrorists had struck there.
10.45 pm: Ajmal Kasab and Abu Ismail reached Cama Hospital less than an hour after they had barged into the CST station at 9.55 pm and killed 52 inside the terminal.
11 pm: Date's vehicle was stopped at the Metro Cinema junction by a security guard from Cama Hospital who told him there was firing in the hospital, barely a minute's drive away.
11.10 pm: Date was joined by six other policemen at the entrance to Cama Hospital. He saw two bodies at the entrance to the six-storey Women and Children's Ward building inside the Cama compound. The lift operator told him that "two armed men" had walked up the stairs to the terrace after stopping at least twice to round up a few people, including security guard Raosaheb Phunde, and locking them up inside a toilet.
Date's team neared the sixth-floor landing before the terrace, threw pieces of metal towards the terrace door. Date and his wireless operator were in the front, most others on the landing below since they did not have bulletproof jackets. They got a burst of AK-47 fire in return. When they returned fire, a grenade was lobbed at them and almost everybody in the police party sustained injuries, some grievous. During this gunbattle, Date and his wireless operator repeatedly asked Control Room for reinforcements.
Three more grenades were lobbed at them subsequently, even as they kept returning fire.
11.40 pm: Their ammunition almost exhausted and all the men injured, the team was despatched downstairs to get medical help and to contact the Control Room yet again. Date stayed at his post, behind a wall that protected them from certain death in the grenade attacks, along with one dead and one grievously injured constable.
According to information at the Mumbai Police Control Room, teams that accounted for at least 80 policemen reported that they had arrived at Cama Hospital during those 40 minutes, responding to the calls and SMSs Date had sent. These included one SRPF platoon and eight Mumbai Police mobile vans, each carrying between eight and 18 men, many of them armed. But they were never seen or heard, let alone take on the terror duo or seal off the exits to prevent them from fleeing.
Police sources confirm that Date's team was expecting reinforcements to arrive quickly -- Azad Maidan Police Station is adjacent to the hospital, at least two other police stations and the city police headquarters are located less then a couple of kilometers away. But no assistance came.
11.45 pm: Date's injured wireless operator emerged from the building. Outside the rear gate of Cama Hospital, he ran into Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar who had by then separately reached the spot. He informed them that Date was also wounded after which the operator was sent to hospital in Salaskar's vehicle. Within a few minutes of this, the shooting atop the six-storeyed building had stopped.
At around the same time: Maruti Phad, a driver for a senior bureaucrat, received calls to report to work at Mantralaya and had set out from his government staff quarters in the Rang Bhavan lane. He knew there was a police team in the Cama premises from all the firing that had been going on.
11.50 pm: An injured and out-of-ammunition Date sent a text message to Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) K L Prasad that the two terrorists had left. Kasab and Ismail had left the building and reached the main road outside the front gate of the hospital. Then Karkare and his team heard a few shots. Kasab and Ismail had killed a passerby on the pavement.
Meanwhile, as Phad powered his car to make his way out of Rang Bhavan lane towards Metro cinema and from there to Mantralaya, Kasab and Ismail walked calmly in from the main Mahapalika Marg and fired at him.
11.55 pm: Phad was feigning death with bullet injuries in his hand and back. Instantly, his family was making frantic calls to the police. "Information was passed on immediately. From our home window, my wife and brother saw me getting shot," Phad told The Indian Express.
Unable to open Phad's car due to the powerlock, Kasab and Ismail took refuge in the shadow of large bushes and trees around Phad's quarters. "They went into the compound for a bit, changed magazines and then came back to hide in the shadows near the Corporation Bank ATM in the lane 10 metres away. Then there was silence for about 15 minutes," said Phad.
Clearly, in those 15 minutes, the message from Phad's family to the Control Room did not reach Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar, who were waiting less than 100 metres from where Phad lay. They had left behind some policemen at the rear gate of Cama and taken the Toyota Qualis of the Pydhonie division Assistant Commissioner of Police, with Salaskar at the wheel. Four other policemen sat in the rear as they drove towards the Corporation Bank ATM.
12.10 am: As Phad lay at the bottom of his car, he heard the Qualis approach. As he raised his head, he heard the burst of firing from behind the trees by the terrorists. Shocked, he watched as the firing continued from both sides for nearly 10 minutes.
"As the firing from the police vehicle stopped, the duo walked to the car and fired some more," Phad says. "They pulled out bodies from the front of the car and threw them on the road. Realising they would pass me again, I ducked to the bottom of the car."
It was another 15 minutes before the next police vehicle arrived and helped him out of the car and into the adjoining hospital, along with the bodies of Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar from the Qualis.
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recent visits to CST station did not reassure me or my family at all that anything has really changed in our preparedness. There was not one security gaurd with a gun in sighton the loca as well as the long distance routes, couple of constatbles with sticks at the entrance to the local platforms with thousands of passengers going in and out every hour! Where is the visibility of security forces at such crucial locations? when will we learn?
Sir, Many IPS officers from DCP onwards bravely went forward to face the situation but their assessment of the situation was wrong. As always they were in gangster mode and not ready and trained to fight these terrorists. Holding the most sophasticated weapon in hand is of now use if one does not knwo how use it properly and effectively. It required training in taking and use of cover, field and battle craft, buddy pair system and fire and move traing, not to forget stair case and room intervention training along with knowing how to plan and lead such operations. Normal police may be adept at firing a weapon but unless they are trained in the methods and subjects of minor tactics, they may not be effective in fighting trained terrorists like Kasab & Co who were trained by the Pak army SSG commndos and ISI on the same lines as our special force commandos are trained. It is high time that the syllabus to training in the police training institutes is modified.
Inspite of the experiences of 26/11, we still wont be prepared for a terror attack if one happened tomorrow. Also after being ruled by the British and Muslims for 100s of years, we have built up a tendency to wipe out such memories from our lives. Our history books still do not detail out the atrocities of these outside rulers - do you think 26/11 will ever be recorded in history books? Will our children ever learn why this happened. History books wont be changed because the minorities wont allow it! I'm sure we will forget 26/11 in few years time.
This is not surprising. While the Maharashtra ATS and the secular Congress-NCP government controlling them were busy creating "Hindu" terrorists, the real terrorists were hatching their diabolical plans under their nose.
The Bombay Police do not lack in courage and bravery. We have seen ample proof of that especially on 26/11. But bravery alone does not help. Our policemen should not be expected to face AK47 and AK56 assault rifles with lathis and obsolete .303 WWI carbines!! We need to immediately give them the latest weapons and up-to-date communication equipment. BUT that decision is in the hands of the politicans who, for obvious reasons, always want to keep our police weak and subservient to them.
Melagaon case media has blown things up and down. When there is terrorism happening around us, this melagaon case should have been handeled by the media looking into internal security aspects, by punishing the really accused.So much of open interogation of honest police officials in power, they were all demoralised. This is a secular country.And also emotional news reading by times news crews is another aspect. News readers shall read / report news without adding emotions and their views in the form of Bodylanguage.Democracy doesnt mean that its at the cost of internal security of the country.
This is a national issue of gross failure and indifference in duty and not limited to Mumbai alone.People should force their MLAS in Maharashtra and MPs sitting in Parliament and demand an independent enquiry by Supreme Court judges comitte consisting of at least 3 judges.The investigation should also include conduct, actions and omissions of all top officers and Chief and Home Ministers of Maharashtra at that time. Any guilty person shoul be brought to jutice.Please do not get fooled by the Govrment's pseudo action such as changing the Chief Minister for the time being.It is a fundamental right of every person to self respect, life and liberty and feel counted.
Why did Karkare used all is time and brain to only behind Purohit? There were some clues that something like 26/11 will happen. When blasts were happening all over country, something big was definately planned for Mumbai. Why he did not try to to get some information on that front? When he and ATS were only busy with Purohit, these terror outfits were planning those attacks. There is definately chance that they were kept busy, in order help terrorists.
WHY WE ALWAYS WAIT FOR SOME TERRORIST TO ATTACK INNOCENT PEOPLE AND THEN WE START BLAMING PAKISTAN FOR THE ATTACK? IS INDIA SO WEAK THAT ANYONE CAN ATTACK INNOCENT PEOPLE AND THE GOVERENMENT KEEPS BLAMING PAKISTAN FOR THE WEAKNESS? WHY IT TAKES SO LONG LEGAL BATTLE TO PUNISH TERRORISTS INVOLVED IN ANY ATTACK?
This show flows in our Security Elements.We need a thorough revamp and mock drills to ensure system is available at critical events.Those brave men became victim of Govt failure.
It does not require any more proof about the so called efficiency of our Police and the Intelligence Forces.If urgent messages cannot be tranmitted to the top most Police Officials howa lay citizans aresupposed to receive any messages of anykind urfgent or otherwisew.The Citizans are perfectly right that there was no system in the state that functions at all.Sub Ram Bharose Par Chlthehai.To top itthe Gov is making a mockeryofthe system.Now slogen is Wallekum E Salam from the President downwards.
when will you muslims 'john' ha ha ha! ever accept responsibility for your dreadful carnage and actions instead of always thinking of conspiracy theories and blaming others.
Now it is the preperation for Maharashtra Election due in this year.So our "great" indian Media initiates a new implementing new stories with a new script.This will continue till Election there.Then will settle for next round,just like Gujarath Riot story.
John, sure why not! When we have our own like these why do we need paki terrorists! If it was Swat then you pay jizya if its other parts of Pakistan and/or Bangladesh then the Minority dwindles after independence. In India it Increases! wonderful. And we keep looking for ghosts of majority! amazing! Keep up and you will convert a liberal like me into another like you. Then our situation is going to be like our neighbours - And a horrible end to our secularism. That would be a sad day. Unfortunately narrow minded ppl are hell bent on their 'conspiracies' and 'self' interests above Nations. India is Secular because of Hindus. Lets keep it that way.
This marks the clear failure of training. The training should include possible attack scaniro and how to tackle. I think nobody has ever thought or imagined this kind of attack in their wildest dream. But we can be proud that we have bravest and good in the police, not just the 5-10 Rs. guys. India should train its police force, that is the need of the hour. Jai Ho
Our electorate keeps electing sycophants, fraudsters, thieves and criminals to power. Our government, media and law enforcement agencies refuse to act to recover one and a half times the amount of our Gross National Product hidden in foreign banks. Our media highlights travesty and promotes incompetent people to leadership. Our legislative system cannot evolve beyond colonial jurisprudence. Our executive builds infrastructure in hostile nations abroad while our streets are gutted with swage. Our leaders lie to suppress information about and to destroy evidence of our world renowned cultural heritages and civilization. Our law enforcement officers rush to violent crime scenes wearing T shirts, untested life saving devices and toy guns. Our military leaders complain lack of intelligence as an excuse for catastrophic lapses. We are only good at defending ourselves from “Monks” and “ascetics” and running our mouths!
The mysterious way in which Karkare and his colleagues were killed point out to certain other configuration than transborder terrorism.These concerns were raised by a number of people in and out of the country.The possibility of the internal elements hiring a professional group across the border to eliminate officer like Karkare can not be ruled out.Easiest solution is to blame Pakistan.But that is only a solution not the truth.Has the truth died with Karkare or lives with Colonel Purohit and the Indian Terror outfits
The series will surely provide us insights into what went wrong and what could have been done. But considering the dynamics of the situation we shall not get into finger pointing at each other. Terrorism can be fought only when the entire public is awake about what is happening around them, and not only the police. Mumbai surely needs a world class force to protect it but it is possible only through political will. Let us not concentrate on what could have been avoided then, lets turn our attention to what is being done now. Today, arent we vulnerable to attacks??? Surely we are. So instead of focussing and re-living the past mistakes, let us launch in this venture whole-heartedly. I sincerely request The Indian Express to create awareness in the public and ask them to help their local police with whatever information available. Let the Government and people come together to fight this menace which is ruining human civilisation. I thank you for coming up with this wonderful series.
I am shocked to learn that 80 odd policeman were reported to have reached Cama but none really came. I know courage under fire is not common and people like Date need to be applauded. However just praising them is not enough acknowledgment. The people who were dispatched to help and sent false messages of reaching Cama put Date and his teams life in jeopardy. If they had not sent false messages others could have been dispatched. If they chickened out due to fear of their lives the least they could do was inform the authorities. Infact if reinforcement was there then the lives of the other cops could have been saved. It is therefore very important to identify the culprits and hand down harsh punishments.