Hero's death : Tribute to ATS Chief Hemant Karkare
Agencies
Mumbai, Nov 27 : He wore a helmet, talked on his cellphone and finally put on a bullet-proof jacket before he met his deathly fate in the country's biggest terror seize.
Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare, who was probing the Malegaon blasts case, suffered three bullet injuries in his chest as he was leading the offensive against the terrorists in one of the places the ultras had holed out early this morning.
The last television visuals of the 54-year-old officer showed him in a light blue shirt and dark trousers surrounded by uniformed policemen armed with firearms and walkie-talkies.
During the Malegaon investigation, Karkare had told his officers not to create false evidence, saying, "We should do our job and it is for the court to decide." Incidentally, the Pune ATS on November 26 reportedly received phone calls threatening to blow up the residence of Karkare "within a couple of days".
In his last interview to a television channel yesterday, he referred to getting the custody of Malegaon blast accused Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, and said "police custody would have helped investigations to proceed faster but still we will see how best to deal with it in a legal way".
Originally from Madhya Pradesh, Karkare studied mechanical engineering in Nagpur and worked at the National Productivity Council and Hindustan Lever before making it to the IPS in 1982. Known to be an upright officer who served in the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) as well as the Indian mission in Vienna, Austria, as a counselor, Karkare did not hide his love for Mumbai or his discomfort with the predominantly political-bureaucratic culture of Delhi where he was posted.
During a stint in the Chandrapur forests near Nagpur in 1991 to fight Naxalites, he took an interest in driftwood, discovered artistic shapes in them and converted them into wooden sculptures, making about 150 of them over a two-year period. Talking to the media about sensitive cases such as Malegaon could prove to be a double-edged sword, he had said as we parted, adding that he would like us to meet informally once a month so that he could learn the ways of the media.
A journalist, Y P Rajesh of Indian Express daily, writes in his column "The previous evening, hours after our meeting, TV channels had ‘breaking news’ that he had received a fresh death threat from some unidentified caller, apparently in connection with the Malegaon probe. An Indian Express reporter SMSed him asking him if this was true or if he had anything to say. His reply: just a smiley."