IPS officer saves Maoist after shooting him

The officer first shot at him and then saved his life. Hit by a bullet, Somaru, a Maoist commander, owes his life to an IPS officer who had engaged him in a fierce gun battle last week in the dense forests o Chhattisgarh’s Bastar.

“Saheb saved my life,” says Somaru, referring to Dantew ada’s additional superintenden of police Abhishek Pallav, as he recovers at a hospital.

Carrying a bounty of ~1 lakh Somara was hit in the abdomen by a bullet on March 18 during the seven-hour long encounter that left five Maoists and two police men dead. Bleeding profusely and writhing in pain, his life was rapidly ebbing when Pallav, a doctor-turned-policeman, came to his rescue.

“Time was the key to saving his life as he was losing blood pro fusely and I being a trained doctor could not have looked the other way,” says Pallav.

Before joining IPS in 2013, Pal lav from Begusarai in Bihar was a practicising doctor, having done his MD from AIIMS in 2009

Though a bit rusty, he had not forgotten his skills. Even as the gun battle raged, he bandaged the woundedsomaru,gavehimpain killer injections and then sent him off to the nearest hospital in an ambulance.

“If he had bled for a few more minutes, he would have been dead,” says Pallav.

But sending Somaru to the hos pital was easier said than done Bullets were flying and a police man already lay dead, making the security personnel bay for blood They wanted Somaru dead.

“Though a fugitive, he is an Indian citizen. He deserved treat ment,” says Pallav. He reasoned with his men and they finally relented to let Somaru be taken to the hospital.

Pallav’s act has earned him ful some praise from his higher-ups and yielded valuable intelligence on the Maoists from Somaru.

“What the officer has done is a brilliant example of how rules o engagement should be followed,” admits DM Awasthi, the specia director general of Chhattisgarh police. Often accused of excesses during their anti-maoist opera tions, Pallav’s humanitarian act could be a potential PR master