Vinita Kamte, wife of Ashok Kamte, who was killed in the encounter with terrorists on November 26, 2008 (the anniversary is tomorrow) has alleged in a book titled To the Last Bullet, co-authored by journalist Vinita Deshmukh, several lapses by the Bombay police. In this article in rediff.com, she alleges that there wasn’t a back up team to support the top cops Hemant Karkare, her husband, and Vijay Salaskar who died in the incident, in spite of a request being made for it.
Imagine this: terrorists enter and kill around 50 people in Victoria Terminus, walk into Cama Hospital and walk out coolly, all taking all the time from 10 p.m. till 11 p.m. or thereabouts and there aren’t any police teams available to surround the affected areas. Meanwhile watch the following footage of the horror at Victoria Terminus.
why are people walking about so casually throughout the footage? the cops never cleared the corridors even when they knew something was going on. there are 2 men with mobiles just walking around till the very last minute. same is true of the scenes outside the taj and the trident. people standing around watching, not being asked to leave. such a media circus, with news channel employees reporting with glee and excitement every move and measure taken by the police. last night, on cnn-ibn, during the relay of the transcripts of mobile conversations, everytime the handlers said that they were watching what was happening on tv, i cringed. in a way, our wonderful media aided them too. the terrorists knew who was going to walk in the door when ATS officers were shot down. the govt should ban all those channels that were covering the 26/11 episode on the fateful day with great irresponsibility just to get their ratings up. in the west, media footage is shown AFTER the attack has been dealt with. but not here. i want the families of the victims to register cases of criminal negligence against the news channels.
ReplyDeletems,
ReplyDeleteI also wonder, why wasn't the area cleared when the police knew an attack was going on. Or, didn't they receive proper instructions, a case of being caught napping?
A case of being caught napping is the understatement of the year.
ReplyDeleteI have written about this in my blog "The Indian Express"