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Victims forgotten in normalcy veneer

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Tum weapon chaloo shakto kaa?'' (Do you know to operate weapons) was the ominous question encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar asked constable Arun Jadhav while inducting the latter in his team in 1996. "Salaskar's words still echo in my mind. I was really unable to hold my weapon that fateful night when terrorists Ajmal Kasab and Abu Ismail fired at our jeep. I was grievously injured and unable to fire back,'' said Jadhav. He was in the jeep in which ATS chief Hemant Karkare, additional commissioner Ashok Kamte and Salaskar were killed.

But Jadhav has another regret too, that he was not compensated properly. "I feel I should have been killed. Atleast the government would have given my family a proper house. I live in the police quarters. I got merely Rs 3 lakh. Is this the way to treat a policeman who put his life at risk? I am alive today just because I was lucky,'' he rues.

Remebering the incidents of that day he said, "As our jeep took a turn towards Corporation Bank, I heard a shot being fired at our vehicle. I was in the backseat and fired a few rounds but two constables fell on me and the car moved to some distance before halting. I could not do anything as I received three bullets-two in the right hand and one in the shoulder. I could see Kasab and Ismail throw away the bodies of the three officers. They wanted to throw me and the two constables out too, but the backdoor would not open and they decided to drive on. I lay in the jeep pretending to be dead till we reached Vidhan Bhavan where the duo got off and hijacked a car. I picked up the wireless and flashed the number of the vehicle in which they were fleeing.''

"Jadhav was second-time lucky as a team led by a senior police officer gheraoed the abandoned jeep and was about to shoot him. But a constable identified him. He was thus saved,'' said a police officer.
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