Jaisingh Patil was a senior inspector and part of A A Khan’s squad that killed Dolas’ gang
NERUL: It was November 15, 1991, a day before the famous Lokhandwala encounter. One of the senior inspectors with the northern regional unit of metropolis’s Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) Jaisingh Patil was enjoying his casual leave on a cool but sunny morning by driving his motorbike through Andheri’s intense traffic buzz.
At the stroke of 11 am, when he was little away from his home at Char Bangla Junction, his colleagues stopped him unawares ending his joyride for an altogether different reason. They wanted to collect weapons and bulletproof jackets they had stored at his residence for an official deployment at Lokhandwala - a clandestine operation planned for the next day.
“On my own I cancelled my leave and joined the ATS team led by A A Khan to assist him in the operation. By the time I reached the spot on November 16, my colleagues M A Kavi and sub-inspector Gharal had sustained bullet injuries. It was a thrilling experience to be a part of the ATS team, which won several gallantry awards, first time in the history by any state police team, for several such daredevil operations,” recalls retired Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) Patil who takes pride in contributing his services as the prominent member of Khan’s ATS.
Interacting with DNA, Patil, who owns a private security agency named Tring Detectives and Security Solutions with its head office at Belapur, said that the movie did not live up to his expectations.
“Those were the golden days when every member of ATS worked in perfect tune without ego hassles. Even an informed sepoi with us would lead the team during operations. Success of ATS in all its operations lies in this professionalism and dedication,” he adds while taking a puff on his cigarette. Suneil Shetty plays his character as ‘Raviraj Patil’ in the just released movie ‘Shootout at Lokhandwala’.
According to Patil, Lokhandwala shootout was just one small case handled by ATS. He said that the squad with nearly 200 members was formed in 1990 to take on terrorist activities. However, he lamented that the squad, which later left with only two members (he himself and Sunil Deshmukh, who is still with ATS), was dismantled after 18 months of its existence. “Before the deployment at Lokhandwala, the force was well prepared. Enough measures to avoid crossfire and injury to civilians were taken. It was not an ambush, but a shootout with minimum firepower and within the legal framework. It was not indiscriminate, but a disciplined retaliatory firing by police.
“The confiscation of .22 mm Diana telescopic gun, the type also used in John Kennedy’s murder, from Maya Dolas and Dilip Boha was a big surprise,” Patil disclosed further. Patil is a resident of Lenyadri Housing Society in Nerul’s sector 19.
“I also closely remember our day-time operation in Dagadi chawl, where we seized a huge stock of ammunition, a Khindipada encounter where we killed seven terrorists and another terrorist operation in Vadodara. This chain of operations fetched 18 gallantry and five bar gallantry awards for us,” said Patil who still receives Rs 900 ‘tankhwa’ in reward revealed. For him, Rs 900 per month financially does not matter much but is a reward any police official will take pride in.
He said besides Khan, Kavi, Deshmukh and Patil, Iqbal Sheikh, Raja Mandge, Pimparkar, Pramod Rane, and Ambadas Pote were on the ATS’s forefront. He admits that the faith posed in them by the then Commissioner of Police Rammoorthy and Chief Minister Sharad Pawar was the encouraging factor behind ATS’s success.
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