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Fear of terror never left her; perhaps it never will

Rahi Gaikwad

The bad news came when Snehalata called up husband at CST

Murlidhar Lakshman Chaudhari

Ambarnath (THANE district): Every time she took the local train, Snehalata Murlidhar Chaudhari was a bag of nerves. “After the 2006 Mumbai train blasts, I was very scared to go anywhere. Whenever I had to commute to my mother’s house, I would ask my husband to pick me up at the station. He would do so and then go to work,” she says.

Murlidhar Lakshman Chaudhari, 54, would reassure his wife and tell her that blasts do not happen every time. But then came November 26, 2008 and Murlidhar, head constable with the Railway Protection Force, who was on duty at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), fell to the bullets of the terrorists that night. Snehalata and her son Devesh, 14, had turned in by 10 p.m. They had not switched on television and were oblivious of the mayhem being wreaked on Mumbai.

As Murlidhar did not return home by 1.30 a.m., his usual time after a late shift, Snehalata called him up. “A home guard answered the call and told me that my husband was no more,” she says.

Snehalata felt that she had heard the most bizarre thing. “The home guard said he could not talk any further. He asked me to come over. I could not trust him. Who was this person? Then, I thought perhaps my husband was mugged somewhere. Devesh woke up when he heard me crying. I called up my relatives and they went to check.” What followed gave her the cruellest shock.

A terrible night

“That night was terrible. I had never dreamt of anything like this. He left at his usual time. Took his tiffin box. Every day we made at least one phone call when he was at work. That day neither I nor my son called him.”

Murlidhar was shot before he could realise what was happening at the CST. “He did not get time to figure out. People told me he went to check. He thought there were firecrackers. One person had fallen to the ground. He went to see him and got shot. Had he had any inkling, he would not have gone forth in that manner. His life would have been saved. We have a small sense of assurance that he has earned a name for himself, but we wanted him for ourselves,” says Snehalata.

Good-natured, helpful

The family is now left with fond memories. It remembers him as a good-natured and helpful person. He would rush to help neighbours. “We used to tell him to change himself, but he never did. He never got mad at the children and told me not to do so either. He would always explain things out. Because of his mild disposition, even our neighbours never guessed that he was in the police. They are learning that now,” says Snehalata. Her mother endorses her version.

Devesh and his older sister Priyanka, in her 20s, are trying to move on. “They talk to people who come home to meet us, but they cannot go on. They start crying. If a person is ill, one is prepared, but this is so sudden,” says Snehalata.

Her heart bleeds when she thinks of all the children who have lost their fathers in the attacks.

“I saw on TV that four-month-old babies have lost their fathers. These children will never know father’s love. This should not have happened to anybody.”

After Murlidhar’s death, it seems that fear, which plagued Snehalata all these years, is only growing stronger. Now she has to deal with it all by herself.

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