JJ Hospital sweeper admits to disposing Karkare's jacket

Mumbai, Dec 23 (ANI): A sweeper at Mumbai's JJ Hospital has accepted that he had disposed the bulletproof jacket of former (Anti Terrorist Squad) ATS chief Hemant Karkare on November 27 last year.

The sweeper in his statement on Tuesday (December 22) before a magistrate admitted that he had put a 'jacket' in a garbage disposal bag. The police are now investigating to find out if that particular jacket was indeed the missing jacket of Hemant Karkare.

The Mumbai Police had earlier filed a case at JJ Marg police station, to find the missing bulletproof jacket of former Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare.

On Monday (December 7), the Mazgaon Metropolitan Court had asked the Mumbai Police to investigate the case of Karkare's missing bulletproof jacket.

The orders of the court had come after the complaint was filed by Santosh Daundkar, who had moved the court, saying that the bulletproof jacket had gone missing from Sir JJ Hospital, where the body of the slain ATS chief was taken for autopsy, after he was shot dead at Cama Hospital during the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks.

Kavita Karkare, the wife of former ATS chief had earlier filed an RTI to know about the quality of the bulletproof jacket, but in response she was told that the jacket had gone missing.

Following this, Kavita Karkare had raised several questions with respect to the treatment given to the martyred heroes of the country, while the government spends crores of rupees to conserve the bodies of the terrorists.

On behalf of the government, Home Minister P Chidambaram had tendered an apology to the Karkare family.

Hemant Karkare was shot near Cama Hospital on the night of 26/11, along with IPS officer Ashok Kamte and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar.

Although the three officers were wearing bulletproof jackets, they received bullet injuries on their chests, which have put up several questions over the effectiveness of these jackets provided to the officials on the night of 26/11 to counter the terrorists. (ANI)