For Vinita Kamte, widow of ACP Ashok Kamte, the statement made by Joint Commissioner of Police (crime) Rakesh Maria three days ago in Mumbai, clarifying the crucial role Kamte played on the first night of Mumbai attacks was a case of too little too late.

“He should have said all this on November 27, the day after my husband died and not now, one-and-a-half months later. But still I am glad that the police department has at least made this admission — that my husband did not rush into the battle without thinking and that he was the one who shot Kasab. His name has been cleared and I am at peace now,” said Vinita Kamte.

She said that ever since the night of the attacks she and Kavita Karkare had been inundated with questions from everyone as to the lack of wisdom displayed by the senior police officers in rushing to the spot in a car. She also said that the police never made it public that Kamte had shot Kasab for reasons best known to them.

On January 10, Maria acknowledged in a statement that Kamte had fired at Kasab, injuring him in both his arms and thus incapacitating him. He also reconstructed the sequence of events emphasising on the time spent by Karakare, Salaskar and Kamte in planning out a strategy and how finally they were forced to take the only police vehicle available when they realised that terrorists may be escaping from the front gate of the Cama hospital. “I have no idea why these facts were kept secret and my husband and others made to look like officers who failed to think at a critical time and rushed ahead blindly,” said Vinita who visited Mumbai in December where she spent days going through the details of her husband’s death, talking to witnesses and putting together the sequence of events.

“I was told by the officers that Kasab had told the police the second day itself who had shot him. He described my husband who has very distinct looks and who was the only one in uniform at that time so there couldn’t have been any ambiguity. Also I learnt how the officers had spent almost 40 minutes working out a strategy, that the control room had received many calls from people near Cama hospital who saw the terrorists but this crucial information was not passed on to the officers there and that despite Kamte calling for urgent reinforcements on realising the gravity of the situation, nothing was done,” said Vinita.

Vinita said: “I would never have known all these had I not gone to Mumbai, talked to people and found it all out on my own,” she said. Asked whether she was feeling bad about the fact that her husband’s name does not feature in the short-list for Ashoka Chakra, Vinita said that she is not bothered by it as all she wanted to do was clear his name and get him his due. “He was not the kind to go down without a fight. I wanted to establish just that,” she said.