Officer Kadam Takes Charge

While you sniff the hypothesis, examine it and sit on it, we’ll tell you the story of a 40-year-old Mumbai Police Special Branch I officer who was faced with a similar situation on those two, by now infamous, inundated days in the last week of July.

‘‘When the rains first looked like they’d never stop, I went out and had a look around in the afternoon. There was heavy flooding, but I thought things would get sorted out,’’ says the well-built Tushar Kadam at his ground-floor flat in a recently-repaired building in Kalina, Santacruz, one of the city’s worst-hit areas.

But late that night, the officer of the Crawford Market-HQed Special

Branch I, whose men gather intelligence and dress in civilian clothes, realised something was very wrong.

‘‘When we woke up the next day, my house was already knee-deep in water,’’ says the former airline employee, who joined the city police in 1989. Kadam’s wife decided she’d handle the water in the house; he could go out and do his bit at the Air India, Indian Airlines and New Air India colonies, a sprawling staffers complex of some 100 buildings.

‘‘I literally had to swim. It was a little scary,’’ says Kadam who, as a former encounter specialist, tailed and caught up with a bike-riding Mumbai gangster, called out to him while riding his own bike and then, shot him dead.

‘‘I’d heard the airline colonies were in bad shape and water even on the approach road was around eight-feet high,’’ says Kadam, who tried to get a handle on things. ‘‘But it was of no use. None of the people, who were crying, running around, even dying, would listen to me. Plus there was no sign of the official machinery.’’

So, common man Kadam negotiated his way back home and put on his rarely-used uniform. Two minutes later, it was an Assistant Inspector who plunged back into the waters.

The uniform worked. ‘‘People were relieved to see a policeman take charge of the situation,’’ says Kadam, who gathered a group of local volunteers, among them, a director at AI, and a laundry owner, and set to work.

Barely managing to keep their heads above water, the group headed first to the Air India colony. ‘‘A fear psychosis had gripped its residents,’’ says Kadam. The first of the dead bodies—the group fished out 12 in two days—was recovered from a first-floor flat.

At about the same time, his friend Benhur Vaz was plodding through the sludge in his van, carrying a leaky boat from town.

Once the vessel hit the by now 12-feet deep water, Kadam and two of his men, using bamboo poles as oars, rowed from colony to colony (the rest of the about 10-member group held on to the sides, pushing the boat), negotiating fallen trees and marooned vehicles. The 14 rounds they made across the three colonies saw them rescue marooned children from a first floor of a fast submerging school, people stranded in local buses, and distribute biscuits, milk and water among the residents.

‘‘It was when we were distributing the stuff in the colonies that we heard of a couple and their three-month-old twins stranded on a first-floor flat in Air India colony,’’ says Kadam.

The water had already submerged the ground floor and was now rising ominously. ‘‘The kids had not had anything to eat for two days, and the mother appeared unwell,’’ says Kadam, who positioned the boat right below the flat.

‘‘She was unwilling to let go of her children,’’ says Kadam, who asked his men to make sure the boat didn’t sway an inch. Once he’d done the convincing, the officer climbed onto the edge of the boat, stood on tip-toe and extended his hands towards the couple. ‘‘They were standing on the first-floor corridor. I prayed hard as I steadied myself and cupped my fingers.’’ Bunty made a smooth landing, followed by Babli. New life lay next to snuffed-out souls in plastic bags on the boat.

Three days later, when we spoke to Sunil and Rajni Yadav, we didn’t ask them how they felt—we’ll leave that to television reporters. We just let them talk. ‘‘My mother waited outside the colony with a little milk, pleading with people to deliver it inside,’’ says Yadav, a driver with a travel firm. ‘‘Each time we opened the door to try and get out, the water would come gushing in. In the end, I knew that I would have to trust Tushar,’’ says Rajani, a homemaker. The Yadavs are now preparing to throw the officer a ‘‘party’’.

Kadam’s bit for his locality lasted 20 hours and ended with the rescue of more than 40 people. There was appreciation all around and a pat on the back from the state CM. All of which was par for the course, but there was one thing he hadn’t quite expected. ‘‘When I went back to office the next day,’’ says Kadam, smiling just a bit, ‘‘I saw that I’d been marked absent for two days.’’