Mumbai (PTI): ATS chief Hemant Karkare and two other officials of Mumbai police were killed while chasing terrorists near CST railway station, Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil said in Mumbai on Thursday.

All the three top cops — ATS chief Hemant Karkare, Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Kamte and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar — came under fire while chasing terrorists near CST in a jeep, Patil said.

Expressing grief over their death, Patil said Karkare and other police officials were having a meeting with him around 9.30 pm on Wednesday when Karkare got the information about some firing at Oberoi hotel.

The ATS chief rushed there and later to CST railway station as reports of another firing came. ACP Sadanand Date was also fighting terrorists at CST but taking advantage of the night, the assailants blew the explosives and moved towards Cama hospital, Patil said.

Date was injured in the attack, he added.

Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar took a jeep and followed them towards Metro cinema but they were killed in retaliatory firing near Cama hospital, he said.

Though they were wearing bullet-proof jackets, the terrorists fired their AK-47 rifles from a close distance, he said, adding that a bullet hit Karkare's neck.

Patil confirmed that condition of Date, whom he met at the hospital, is improving and that he would be discharged in two days.

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