Mumbai:
The Maharashtra government has announced that it will decide in a week who is to blame for losing the bulletproof jacket that Hemant Karkare was wearing when he was shot dead during Mumbai's 26/11 attacks.
Home Minister RR Patil said on Monday that the person responsible for losing Karkare's jacket will be suspended. "We will decide in a week who is responsible," he told the Maharashtra Assembly.
Karkare, the chief of the Anti-Terror Squad, was killed near Cama Hospital along with Assistant Commission of Police Ashok Kamte and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar.
Karkare's wife, Kavita, has slammed the government publicly and repeatedly for its carelessness. She filed an application under the Right to Information Act, pointing out that the jacket went missing after Karkare was killed. The Mumbai police was then forced to admit that the jacket had been lost.
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) claims that Karakare's jacket was sub-standard and could therefore not protect him when Pakistani terrorists opened fire on the night of 26/11.
In an interview to NDTV in November, Home Minister P Chidambaram apologised to Kavita Karkare for the missing jacket. In response, Karkare told NDTV, "This is a sign of his bigness."
The Maharashtra Home Minister has also promised action against Hasan Gafoor, who was Police Commissioner of Mumbai during 26/11. In a controversial interview to The Week magazine last month, Gafoor had blamed senior officers for failing to act on 26/11, and for being reluctant to visit the sites of the terrorist attacks.
The government had rejected Gafoor's allegations. Now, Patil says Gafoor, currently Director General of Police (Housing) will be penalized for his remarks.