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With all its blood and bravery, 26/11 has spawned many a book Blood and gore, fear, good versus evil, acts of valour, moving tales of survivors, grief, a dash of high society...26/11, perhaps more than any other single event in India’s recent history, had all that it takes to spawn books and movies.
A year on, while over a dozen books on the Mumbai terror attacks have been penned, Bollywood has registered over two dozen film titles, besides several documentaries and short films. Plenty of books have already hit the shelves. So far, the books in English already include: Who Killed Karkare? (by S.M. Mushrif, ex-Inspector-General of Police, Maharashtra); 26/11 — Mumbai Attacked (Edited by Harinder Baweja, Roli Books); 26/11 The Attack On Mumbai (Introduced by Vir Sanghvi, Penguin Books); War Zone Mumbai (Mrityunjay Bose, Pentagon Press). There are more: Investigating The Mumbai Conspiracy (by Wilson John and Vishwas, Pentagon Press); Mumbai Under Siege (by Nikhil Dixit, Jaico Publishing House); Mumbai 26/11 - A Day of Infamy (by B. Raman, Lancer Publishers); Piercing The Heart - Unheard Voices Of 26/11 (Simran Sodhi, Rupa & Co). There are books in Hindi and Marathi as well. While Dahshat Ke 60 Ghante - 26/11 and Aankhon Dekhi are in Hindi, Jitendra Dixit’s 26/11: Woh 59 Ghante is in both Hindi and Marathi. In her book, To The Last Bullet, co-authored with Vinita Deshmukh, Vinita Kamte, the widow of additional police commissioner Ashok Kamte, one of the slain heroes of 26/11 terror attacks, has alleged that Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Rakesh Maria had attempted to suppress crucial details of the sequence of events that led to her husband’s death. Speaking to mediapersons after releasing her book, published by Ameya Prakashan, in Mumbai recently, Vinita has also accused Maria of feigning ignorance about the location of her husband and his colleague Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Hemant Karkare, who too was slain on the first night of the terrorist attacks. In her book, she has narrated in detail how Mumbai Police created hurdles for her and did not disclose details and the sequence of events that led to her husband’s death that fateful night. Vinita has also alleged that Maria, who is in-charge of the trial of the sole surviving terrorist, Ajmal Amir Kasab, had also declined to provide certain crucial documents pertaining to the incident. She has revealed how, following non-cooperation from the police, she was compelled to use the Right to Information (RTI) Act for securing every single document, including her husband’s autopsy reports, which were necessary for settling his insurance claims. She recalled how, when she called her husband on mobile phone upon learning of the terror attacks, he had told her that he was instructed to go to Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel by the then Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor. But Kamte was killed near Cama Hospital, which is on the road adjacent to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), another site targeted by the terrorists. "While inspecting the call logs and the conversation between Gafoor and Maria, the latter had informed the former about Kamte’s position at the Cama Hospital. How did he land up at Cama Hospital when he was directed to go to Hotel Taj Mahal?" Vinita asked. She said that Maria had refused to provide her with the call logs details. The book release
function at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower was attended by police
commissioner D. Shivanandhan, RTI activist Aruna Roy, and two former
city police commissioners Julio Rebeiro and M.N. Singh, among others.
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