Mumbai:
In an exclusive interview on NDTV, the Home Minister concedes that it is shoddy of the Mumbai police to have misplaced the bulletproof vest of Hemant Karakare, who died while defending Mumbai in the 26/11 attacks. Speaking on whether India is any safer one year after 26/1, P Chidambaram said he could only say sorry for the lapse.
Hemant Karkare was the chief of the Anti-Terror Squad. He was killed on the night of 26/11 near Cama Hospital. along with Additional Police Commissioner, Ashok Kamte, and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar.
His wife, Kavita, says she has filed an application under the Right to Information Act to locate the jacket but was told there was no sign of it. There have been allegations that the bulletproof vest that Karkare was wearing when he was shot was defective. Reacting to Chidambaram's apology on NDTV, Kavita Karkare said, "
I accept his apology, it is his greatness... but the Mumbai Police have closed the case. And what about the quality of bulletproof jackets? If they had been better, my husband would not have died."
Last week, a furious Kavita Karkare had said, "It is being said that my husband, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salskar got killed as they went into the operation blindly but the truth is they kept asking for reinforcements and help for 40 minutes which they never got. For 40 minutes, their bodies were there on the road while the terrorists' bodies were rushed to the hospital. They have spent Rs 22 crore on preserving the bodies of the nine terrorists. But they couldn't be careful enough to preserve my husband's bulletproof jacket."