New Delhi - Lying in a hospital bed, forty-nine-year-old
Chandrakant Tikhe, a staffer at Mumbai's Cama Hospital recounts the
moments of terror when he came face to face with two of the Mumbai
gunmen, was held at gunpoint and miraculously lived to tell the tale.
On Wednesday night, Tikhe was among the first people to know that
the terrorists had struck the city.
Shortly after going on a rampage in the main railway station,
which lies near the hospital in southern Mumbai, two terrorists
entered the facility, which serves women and children exclusively and
where Tikhe works as a lift operator.
In an interview with the IANS news agency, Tikhe said the
terrorists, who were aged between 22 and 25, carried automatic AK-47
rifles and grenades in satchel bags. They had entered the hospital
premises through the rear gate after shooting two watchmen.
'They saw me as they walked up straight to the sixth floor and the
one looking like a Nepalese asked me in chaste (that is, refined or
elevated) Hindi whether I was Hindu or Muslim. When I told them I was
a Hindu, they trained their rifle at me, ordered me to turn my back
and took away the mobile phone from my shirt pocket,' Tikhe told the
IANS.
The terrorists then ordered Tikhe, at gunpoint, to lead them
through the hospital.
'I tried to resist them but when they threatened to kill me, I
acquiesced and started walking down the stairs ahead of them,' he
said.
Moments later, police officer Sadanand Date and five police
constables walking up the stairs saw Tikhe.
Tikhe whispered to the officer in Marathi, a language used in
Maharashtra state where Mumbai lies, and said he was a hospital
employee. Tikhe then gestured to the officers that the two
terrorists were following him at some distance.
The officer told him that he should duck when the police officers
opened fire and challenged the terrorists.
The terrorists 'ran up throwing a grenade in our direction and hid
somewhere on the terrace. After a while, they hurled two more
grenades when the police officers continued to fire in spite of
suffering grievous grenade injuries,' he told the IANS.
'I lay writhing in pain along with the injured policemen while
their leader soldiered on disregarding his bleeding wounds. The two
(terrorists) then fled the place, perhaps climbing down a pipe,'
Tikhe recalled, paying tributes to Date for saving the lives of
hundreds of people in the hospital.
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