8 years on, martyred Mumbai cops’ kin to get claim

The families of the 21 policemen, who had died on duty in 2003, will soon get the insurance money from Axis bank.

The bank has not only agreed to make payments to the families of the policemen, but has also come out with new benefit schemes for the police.

Joint commissioner of police, administration, SP Yadav said, “On-duty policemen had insurance cover of Rs2 lakh from the Axis bank and the policemen had to pay a monthly premium of Rs250 from their salary for the same. The kin of those 21 policemen who died in 2003 were never given the insurance money by the bank. The bank had stated that there was no on-time documentation from the police department and hence, the insurance company had denied payment. The cases were pending since then.”

He added that recently there was a meeting between the bank officials and senior police officers wherein concrete decisions were taken not only about the payments, but also about other issues involving the bank, as the police have their salary accounts with Axis bank.

“The bank has not only agreed to make the payment of Rs42 lakh, but has also agreed to increase the insurance cover from Rs2 lakh to Rs5 lakh,” Yadav said.

In order to give benefits to the police, in 2003, the bank had installed 20 ATMs at 12 different locations for the police, including police headquarters at Crawford Market, Mahim, Naigaum, Kalachowkie, Sakinaka, Santa Cruz and Tardeo.

The services of these ATMs were not only used by the police, but also by the bank’s customers. “Since 2003, the bank has not given any rent for these ATMs to the police. They have also assured on paying the complete rent, which was due since 2003, and assured to give housing loans to policemen on low interest rates,” Yadav said.