GIRL SHOT BY KASAB HAS IPS ASPIRATIONS

Devika Rotawan is still haunted by memories of scores of people lying in pools of blood. Devika was eight years old when a bullet injured her at CCMT station when her parents were taking her to Pune. The girl, who was treated in a government hospital for a month, later turned star witness during 26/ 11 trial as she had confidently recognized Ajmal Kasab. “I can’t forget the person who fired a bullet at me,” she had said during the trial. Devika said that she is now an Arts student at Siddharth College and she aspires to become an IPS officer to eradicate terrorism from the country. She also said, “It feels bad when I see a terrorist attack in various parts of India after the 2008 terror attack.” Devika, who lives in slums near Bandra, said her father does odd jobs to run their home. Her mother had died after a few years after the attack, and the girl has to juggle running the house alongside her studies. Nicknamed ‘ Goli’ ( bullet) by her parents, Tejaswini Shyamu Chauhan, has an inexorable link with one of the darkest chapters in the city’s history.

The child’s mother, Viju Chauhan ( 37), was in the throes of labour when two terrorists breached Cama & Albless Hospital on the fateful night of November 26, 2008. At the exact moment when Tejaswini breathed her first breath, at 10.50 pm, Pakistani gunmen Ajmal Kasab and Abu Ismail set foot on the landing of the stairway leading to the building terrace, lobbing grenades and holding off a team of policemen two floors below with sustained machine gun fire. Ms Chauhan said, “Joy and sorrow went hand in hand as my bundle of joy was delivered amidst terrorists’ bullet fire outside the hospital.”