Mumbai:
A sweeper at JJ Hospital in Mumbai has said he may have thrown away former ATS chief Hemant Karkare's bulletproof jacket on November 27, last year.
The sweeper, Dinesh Lalji Gatar, recorded his statement before a magistrate on Tuesday, more than a year after Karkare died. He admitted he had put a "jacket" in a garbage disposal bag as part of the medical waste disposed on November 27, 2008, the day after Karkare died.
Police are now investigating if this indeed was the missing jacket of Hemant Karkare. Mumbai Police have said that the statement of the sweeper will be part of the chargesheet that the police will file in court and that the sweeper may not have understood what he was disposing.
However, Y P Singh, the lawyer who filed the RTI application says this is an expected cover-up and eyewash. "How did this sweeper suddenly emerge from nowhere?" he asks. He also raises basic questions on why the police did not register an FIR a year ago.
(Watch: Lawyer questions sweeper's sudden appearance) The bulletproof jacket that Karkare had been wearing on the night of 26/11, when he was killed by terrorists, has been missing since. His wife, Kavita, had filed an application under the Right to Information Act, pointing out that the jacket went missing after Karkare was killed.
(Watch: Kavita Karkare accepts Chidambaram's apology on NDTV)Mumbai Police then admitted that the jacket had been lost.
Kavita Karkare was vocal on her hurt and disappointment that the martyr's effects were treated in so cavalier a fashion. Later, Home Minister P Chidambaram apologised to her.
PTI adds: Kavita Karkare has reacted sharply to the sweeper's statement. "This theory had cropped up now because the government is under pressure...I have lost all hopes to get fair justice in this case. I do not believe in this. The government is under pressure and hence this statement at a late juncture," she said.