Sub-inspector Vaibhav Patil, 32, who was part of the combat team that went to rescue Himani Mehta, 14, from the clutches of retired customs officer Harish Maroliya, 60, on Thursday morning recalls his horrifying experience:
We received a call from the police control room at 10:38am about a firing incident in a building at Bhardawadi, near Navrang cinema, Andheri (West). I and three constables from the combat team rushed to the spot.
On reaching the area, I saw 40 to 50 policemen trying to persuade Maroliya to release the girl whom he had kept locked in his house.
For about 20 minutes, the policemen tried negotiating with him, but Maroliya did not budge. He did not seem scared of our warnings.
All of a sudden we heard a gunshot, followed by a girl’s scream. We rushed to the third-floor residence of Maroliya. We first broke open the safety door and then the main door.
When the main door was broken down, I found myself standing in front of Maroliya. And he began firing indiscriminately. The first bullet grazed my left hand. The second hit my right hand.
It was a narrow escape. It is god’s blessings and the good wishes of my family that saved my life today.
(Patil, who lives with his wife and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter at the DN Nagar police quarters, spoke to Manish Pathak. Patil, a native of Kolhapur, has been with the Oshiwara police station since 2006. He is part of the special combat team formed at the divisional level after the 26/11 terror attack.)
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