The Hindu : Front Page : I’ve been shot by terrorists … please send help: last call from constable

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I’ve been shot by terrorists … please send help: last call from constable

Anupama Katakam

His job was his passion, says brother
He did his duty and I am proud of that: wife

MUMBAI: Just after he was shot and injured by terrorists, Vijay Madhukar Khandekar, constable attached to the Azad Maidan police station here, made two phone calls to his friends. “I have been shot by terrorists who are in Cama Hospital. Please ask them to send help here,” he said in the first call made on the night of November 26. A few minutes later he called up again: “I am bleeding heavily. I am going to die, you have to save me,” Khandekar said. His body was recovered a few hours later from the hospital premises.

Khandekar, a wireless operator at the police station, was on duty that fateful night, when terrorists stormed Mumbai. As his station is near the Cama and Albless Hospital and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, where two terrorists went on a killing spree, the policemen there were asked to help Anti-Terrorism Squad and Crime Branch officials combat the lethal duo hiding on the hospital premises.

Ambushed

Khandekar was assigned to go with Sadanand Date, Additional Commissioner of Police. The terrorists ambushed them. While Mr. Date survived the strike, 36-year-old Khandekar did not. It was in this attack ATS chief Hemant Karkare and police officials Ashok Kamthe and Vijay Salaskar were also killed.

According to Ashok Khandekar, constable Vijay’s older brother, “I know my brother would not have hesitated to go where there is trouble. He may not have realised at the time how big this attack was because CST was the first target and at that time no body knew about the Taj, but I have no doubts about his bravery.”

Energetic person

Ashok said Vijay was a very energetic person. He liked to keep fit and would do yoga every day. He also enjoyed reading. But his job was his passion and told him (Ashok) several times that duty and looking after people were very important in this profession.

“My brother always told me he wanted to move ahead fast and achieve a lot in life. He told me once that he envied me a little because I am in the private sector. I wish there was a way I could tell him that what he did on November 26 is much more than any of us would ever achieve in our lifetime. Our whole community is so proud of him.”

Vijay was a third generation member of the Khandekars in the police force. His father died at a young age because of illness.

Stricken with grief, Vijay’s mother Nirmala says: “It’s the mindless killing that keeps coming back to haunt me. The terrorists did not want to negotiate. They just killed, killed and killed. What sense does that make?”

Compensation

Vijay is survived by wife Shraddha and four-year-old daughter Samruddhi. The one-bedroom tenement they live is crowded with neighbours and others who have come to offer condolences. Shraddha said the government had given the family compensation and paper work for allotment of an apartment was under way.

Putting on a brave face on what happened, she says: “Our daughter keeps asking for him. I don’t know what to say. The main thing is he did his duty and I am proud of that.”

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