Released – Hemant Karkare: A Daughter’s Memoir

MUMBAI: Hemant Karkare, the head of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) was midway through his dinner when he was informed around 9.45 p.m. of the attack on the Chhatrapti Shivaji Terminus (CST), one of the first targets of the 26/11 attackers. He switched on the TV as the first images came on about what would turn out out to be one of the worst terrorist assaults on Indian soil. With his driver and his bodyguards, he immediately left for CST, where he donned a flak jacket and a helmet and helmet and entered Platofrm No 1 but found it deserted.
Karkare was then informed that the terrorists had moved to the Cama and Albless Hospital next to the Azad Maidan police station. Accompanied by Additional Commissioner Ashok Kamte and Senior Inspector Vijay Salaskar, Karkare headed for the spot but came under a hail of fire in a narrow lane between St. Xavier’s College and Rang Bhavan, a stones throw away from the Crime Branch office. All three died.
Daughter penned moving tribute Eleven years after that horrific night, Karkare’s daughter has penned a moving tribute to her father in “Hemant Karkare: A Daughter’s Memoir” that she says was “very difficult” to write but is “satisfied” she has been able to complete it.
“It was certainly very difficult because at first I did not know what I should be writing about; what was happening on 26/11. And then I thought I should only write about what I know about my father’s life. So, the focus of my book is about my dad’s journey, how he moulded himself to become what he was, focusing on the positives and providing an inspirational story for all,” Navare told IANS in an interview.
“Hemant Karkare: A Daughter’s Memoir”, published by The Write Place, was released at the Crossword Book Store in Mumbai on Monday.
Jui Karkare Navare, 38, had got married in 2007 and moved to Boston with her husband, an investment banker. The couple has two daughters aged eight and five. On a visit to India soon after her father’s death, she found the diaries he had written when he was in his early 20s and the seed for the book was laid.