There is a new twist in the search for Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare's bulletproof jacket, which went missing after Karkare's death during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks last year.
Thirty-five-year-old sweeper Dinesh Lalji Gataar, working with the state-run JJ Hospital in Mumbai, has told a court that on November 27, 2008, he had mistakenly put the jacket among non-medical waste bags which were later sent to the Deonar dumping ground.
According to a senior police officer, the sweeper recorded his statement in court on Tuesday after a case was filed to investigate the jacket's disappearance.
Gataar reportedly told the court that when he was cleaning the operation theatre on the morning after the terror attacks, he came across a heap of waste and a bulletproof jacket (believed to be the one Karkare was wearing during 26/11 operations).
Now, questions are being raised over the veracity of the sweeper's claim — why did he come forward more than a year after 26/11 and many months after the jacket's disappearance was first questioned? — and whether his statement should be used as a basis to put an end to the theories that are in circulation about what really happened to the jacket.
Do you believe sweeper Dinesh Lalji Gataar's claim that he, mistakenly, disposed of ATS chief Hemant Karkare's bulletproof jacket?
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