In a low-key commemoration of the 26/11 attack, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and Home Minister RR Patil joined the senior police officials, family members of the victims and brave hearts in paying homage to the martyrs of the mayhem on its fifth anniversary at the Police Memorial here on Tuesday.
At the Police Gymkhana at Marine lines in south Mumbai where a memorial has been erected in remembrance of the policemen killed in the November 26-29, 2008 attack on Mumbai, Chavan, Pawar and Patil laid wreaths at the memorial as a mark of respects to this martyred police officers. Ministers Harshvardhan Patil, Naseem Khan and Minister of State for Home Satej Patil also paid homage to the martyrs.
Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh, senior police officials and family members of police officers killed in the attack also paid floral tributes at the police memorial. Amid the sounding of bugle, those present paid respects to 18 security personnel, including the then ATS chief Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar, who made the supreme sacrifice during the 60-hour-long Mumbai siege.
Apart from Patil, Mumbai Mayor Sunil Prabhu, officials of the Central Railway, Government Railway Police and Railway Protection Force laid wreaths at a memorial for the 26/11 victims set up at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), which was one of the targets. Blood donation camps were held at CST, Churchgate, Dadar, Malad and Thane railway stations by various NGOs.
Unlike on the occasion of the first two anniversaries of the 26/11 attack when Mumbaikars had come out in the streets to vent their anger and emotion, there were not many public functions commemorating the Mumbai carnage, in which 166 people were killed and 300 others injured.
The fifth anniversary of 26/11 attack was commemorated more than one year after the captured terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Kasab was hanged in Pune’s Yerwada prison. Kasab was among the ten leT terrorists who had carried out a brazen attack at various places in the metropolis like the CST, Taj and Oberoi-Trident hotels, Jewish centre Nariman House, and popular eatery Café leopold in November 26-29, 2008.
While nine of the ten terrorists were killed by the security forces during the attack, the remaining one- --Mohammed Ajmal Kasab – was caught alive by the police at Girgaum Chowpatty on the intervening night of November 26-27, 2008.