But for his bullet-proof jacket which left the area around shoulders uncovered, former Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare would not have been dead, it was argued in the high court today.
Santosh Daundkar, a social activist, has filed a PIL seeking inquiry into allegedly faulty bullet-proof jackets which the Mumbai police were using. The high court asked the government to file a reply within four weeks.
Karkare fell to terrorists' bullets during the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack. The Petitioner's lawyer and former IPS officer YP Singh argued that according to the postmortem report, the slain police officer had five bullet injuries in the shoulder.
"The jacket he was wearing was like an apron or a frock. It left shoulders and neck exposed...otherwise Karkare would not have been dead today," Singh said.
According to the petition, the order for 110 jackets was placed with NTB Hi-Tech Ceramics in 2002. The jackets provided initially were found to be defective, so they were returned.
But NTB later resupplied the jackets after some alterations and it was approved. It was paid Rs24.7 lakh for the jackets.
Several rules for "purchase of official stores" were violated in the process, the petition said.
When the petitioners sought copies of the file pertaining to the purchase, the records were found to have been missing, Singh said in the petition.
Incidentally, another FIR was lodged recently after Karkare's wife's query under the RTI revealed that the jacket which her husband was wearing too has gone missing.
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