Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Hit by bullets, DCP8217;s bodyguard recounts the horror of his first full-fledged field operation
8220;Every second seemed like an hour8230; it was like staring death in the face at every step,8221; reminisces 27-year-old Amit Khetale, bodyguard of Deputy Commissioner of Police Zone I Vishwas Nangre-Patil, who had accompanied the DCP inside the Taj Hotel during the terror strike on the night of November 26.
Khetale was hit by two bullets inside the hotel and is recuperating at home now.
However, he still can8217;t believe he has survived. 8220;At around 9.30 pm that night, I was accompanying the DCP to Colaba when we learnt that some gunmen had entered the Taj Hotel and we decided to go there. Till then I was unaware of the gravity of the situation. But when I saw bodies lying in a pool of blood in the hotel lobby, it struck me this was not a case of petty firing. While the realisation that we were dealing with dangerous people soon dawned on us, the other simultaneous reaction was of sheer fear,8221; Khetale recalls.
Led by the Taj Hotel security chief Sunil Kudiyadi, DCP Nangre-Patil and Khetale had gone up to the second floor when they spotted the terrorists on a stairway. 8220;The DCP fired at them with his Glock pistol and they immediately sprayed bullets at us. It was my first experience of facing bullets. I had never been on a full-fledged field operation before, let alone one of such serious proportions,8221; said Khetale, who had joined the force three years back.
He was first posted at the Local Arms Unit, and then at the Byculla wireless office. He had been sent to the DCP8217;s office only two months back.
The police then went to the CCTV control room of the hotel to monitor the position of the terrorists who had fled to the sixth floor. 8220;We saw them enter a couple of rooms and come out with six persons with their hands raised. The terrorists tied hands of the hostages and shoved them into another room. We had guns and hence a chance to protect ourselves, but I remember thinking how helpless those hostages were. They were repeatedly kicking doors of the rooms, but thankfully no guest opened the door owing to the prior warnings issued by the hotel staff,8221; he said recalling the events that night.
By 3 am, the CCTV cameras had started blacking out due to the fire set by the terrorists. The second floor where the control room was located was also burning. 8220;We left the room and were moving towards the staircase when the terrorists began firing at us again. A State Reserve Police Force SRPF personnel who was there with us got shot in the firing. At that time, I was near the first stair when two bullets hit me-one on stomach and another on leg. Somehow I reached downstairs and was rushed to the Bombay Hospital ,8221; Khetale concludes.
