Mumbai:
Mumbai's Crime Branch Chief, Rakesh Maria, wants to quit, over allegations made against him by Vinita Kamte, wife of Assistant Commissioner of Police, Ashok Kamte, who was killed in the line of duty during 26/11.
Maria also wants permission to respond to allegations made against him in a new book co-authored by Vinita Kamte. On the night of 26/11, Ashok Kamte was with encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar and Anti-Terror Squad Chief Hemant Karakare when he was shot by terrorists near Cama Hospital. Maria was in charge of the police control room that night.
In her book, Vinita Kamte has alleged that Maria mishandled operations, causing the death of Kamte and his colleagues. Vinita Kamte says her allegations are based on police logs that she won access to through an application under the Right to Information Act.
(Read: A wife's grief: Colleagues let my husband down)Kamte writes " Karkare repeatedly called for reinforcements but they were not sent.... Karkare's team managed to injure Kasab. With prior information which was available to the control room, they would have ambushed the terrorists. And this is what stings my heart. The thought of our husbands lying bleeding for 40 minutes with no help haunts all our families."
Karkare, Salaskar and Kamte were criticized by some for being foolhardy by travelling together after the Mumbai attacks began. Addressing this in her book, Vinita Kamte says it was Maria who diverted her husband to Cama Hospital from the Trident, where he was headed "Why did a senior officer like Rakesh Maria deny that he called Ashok to Cama despite wireless logs showing this," she asks?
Maria has denied sending Kamte to Cama Hospital. He also says that reinforcements were sent continually to Cama Hospital.
In an interview to NDTV, he clarified, "From 21.40 hours of 26/11...for three to four hours...control room reached 1365 terrorist-related calls. We responded to every call with response time of 3-5 minutes per call...I don't think any police force in the world could have done any better."
(Watch: Rakesh Maria on allegations)The Kamte vs Maria charges come after a series of public differences within the Mumbai Police. In an exclusive interview to NDTV, the Home Minister P Chidambaram was scathing about this, saying, "it's time the Mumbai police talks less and does more..the Mumbai police has to learn many lessons- one of them is not to speak out of turn."
(Watch: Talk less, do more: Home minister to Mumbai police)Last week, in an interview to a magazine, former police commissioner Haasan Gafoor said that there were several senior police officer who "refused to be on the ground and take on the terrorists. By doing so they chose to ignore the need of the hour. Yes there was a dearth of eagerness on the part of a handful of senior officers to be on the ground during those days." Gafoor later claimed he was misquoted.