A few good men held fort

The Fort Market Ganesh Utsav Mandal, just a stones throw away from Reserve Bank building, sounds like an innocuous organisation that would surface only during Ganesh festivals. However, members of this 56-year-old mandal played an important role in rescue and relief operations during the terrorists attack on November 26.

Men such as Suresh Bhalekar, Narendra Kalyanji, Anil Jadhav, Sambhaji Nikam Rafiq Mullah, Guru and Bihari are the unsung heroes of city8217;s worst nightmare. These are the men who live ordinary lives, but became extraordinary by going out of their way to save the lives of unknown persons. For the last six years, the mandal has been running an ambulance service at nominal charge and even free of cost. Their ambulance 8212; a TATA make 8212; was one of the first ambulance to reach St George Hospital. 8220;When we reached there we were told to rush to Oberoi to pick up the injured and take them to St George,8221; said secretary of the mandal Anil Jadhav who otherwise earns his living by selling vegetables at Fort Market. Without fearing for their lives the mandal men took the ambulance to Metro Cinema where the firing had taken place. When the terrorists fled CST railway premises, the first wave of bodies arrived at St George Hospital, the closest to CST. 8220;Normally, we cannot stomach the sight of blood and injured people. But that day everybody wax charged,8221; said president of the mandal, Suresh Bhalekar, who was himself at St George Hospital and was joined by other members to help the hospital staff ferry the bodies to other hospitals for post mortem.

For the next 24 hours the ambulance carried about 50 odd bodies to major hospitals such as JJ, KEM and Nair. 8220;At one point of time I happened to carry the body of a child. The child must have been 5 years old. The life of an innocent was snuffed out in the act of rage,8221; said Bhalekar, a worker with TATA Power Company. It is not that men like Bhalekar and others from his mandal are not used to such gory sights.