Hemant Karkare

Hemant Kamlakar Karkare,  (12 December 1954 – 26 November 2008) was the chief of the Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS). He was killed in action during the 2008 Mumbai attacks. In 2009, he was posthumously given the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime gallantry decoration.

Karkare succeeded K. P. Raghuvanshi as the Chief of ATS in January 2008 and was eventually succeeded by Raghuvanshi after he was shot dead on 26 November 2008. He was credited with solving the serial bombing cases in Thane, Vashi and Panvel, and led the investigation of the 2008 Malegaon blasts.

Early and personal life
Hemant Karkare was born in a Maharashtrian Brahmin family.

He was married to Kavita Karkare (1957–2014), a college professor. They are the parents of two daughters and a son.

Education and career
Karkare did his primary schooling from Chittranjan Das Municipal Primary School, Wardha and then received his middle school and high school education from New English High School, Nagpur. He obtained a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur in 1975. After graduation he worked for the National Productivity Council of the Government of India and then Hindustan Lever Limited (now called Hindustan Unilever Ltd.), India's largest FMCG company.

Police service
Karkare joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) as a member of the 1982 batch (35RR). Before becoming the ATS Chief of Maharashtra State in January 2008, he was the Joint Commissioner of Police (Administration) of Mumbai. He also served seven years in Austria as an agent of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India's external intelligence agency. According to former senior Mumbai Police officer Y. C. Pawar, Karkare was regarded as very influential officer in police circles.

Malegaon investigation
On 8 September 2006, a series of bomb blasts took place in Malegaon, Maharashtra. On 29 September 2008, three bombs exploded in Modasa, Gujarat and Malegaon, Maharashtra killing eight people, and injuring 80. Several unexploded bombs were found in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Hemant Karkare, as the chief of the state Anti-Terror Squad, led the investigation into the 2008 Malegaon blasts. In late October 2008, the ATS arrested eleven suspects, including a former ABVP student leader Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Swami Amritananda alias Dayanand Pandey, a retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay and a serving Army officer Lt. Col. Prasad Shrikant Purohit. Most of the accused belonged to a Hindutva group called Abhinav Bharat with prior links to Sangh Parivar organisations. Karkare's ATS identified, for the first time, Hindutva organisations as being responsible for terrorism in India, and political commentators began to call it Hindutva terror or Saffron terror.

Opposition parties, including the Bharatiya Janta Party and Shiv Sena, and Hindu organizations alleged that the arrests were made under the pressure of the incumbent radical government, in an attempt to appease India's Muslim population. These parties called him 'a traitor to the nation' for his investigation in this direction. Narendra Modi, then the Chief Minister of Gujarat, accused the ATS of undermining the military morale. Some BJP, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) leaders accused the ATS of being used as a tool to attack the Sangh Parivar and of using illegal detention and torture. Thakur was given a clean-chit in the chargesheet presented by NIA in 2016 to the court. And the court dropped charges of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) put by ATS following which she applied for a bail and the Court granted it. The bail order lied that she is "suffering from breast cancer" and was "infirm and cannot even walk without support". She is currently facing charges of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and other Indian Penal Code sections and a trial is ongoing as of April 2019. She contested and won the Bhopal seat during the Lok Sabha elections of 2019.

Death
Karkare, along with senior police officials Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar, were killed outside the Cama Hospital after Pakistani terrorist wing opened fire on their police van.

The three officers, along with four constables, had received information that Sadanand Date had been injured in the gunfire at the Cama and Albless Hospital for women and children. Located at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), a ten-minute drive from the hospital, they took a Toyota Qualis and proceeded in that direction. Salaskar was driving, Kamte in the passenger seat, Karkare in the second row, and the four constables, including Jadhav, were in the back row of seating. According to Jadhav, five minutes later, two terrorists stepped out from behind a tree and opened fire with AK-47 automatic rifles. The six policemen, other than Jadhav, were all killed quickly in the gunfire. Kamte was the sole officer who managed to retaliate, wounding terrorist Ajmal in the arm.

The wounded Jadhav had no opportunity to render assistance. The two terrorists approached the vehicle, dumped the bodies of the three officers on the road and, leaving the constables for dead, proceeded to Metro Cinema. At this point, Jadhav was able to contact headquarters. The bodies of the dead were recovered and taken to St George Hospital.

Conspiracy theories
Various issues have been raised over the years about the quality of the subsequent investigation and key pieces of evidence. In an investigation, Headlines Today, an Indian news agency, found that a substandard bulletproof jacket had been issued to Mr. Karkare. Though, according to the post mortem report, the quality of the vest was not a factor in his death as bullets did not pierce the vest. Concerns in the media about the quality of the vest continue because the vest itself was, according to Indian authorities, misplaced in the hospital.

The statement that Kasab fired "inside the car" was also rejected by the court. The crucial evidence in Karkare's death - the source of bullet fired into his body was absent. The bullets did not match with few of the terrorist's recovered guns which made it impossible to decide who among the terrorists killed Hemant Karkare.

In the book The Last Bullet, Vinita Kamte - wife of the Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Kamte who was killed with Karkare in the 26/11 terrorist attacks, alleges that the Mumbai Police ignored crucial information during the attacks. Vinita claims to expose Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria's "feigned ignorance" about the deaths of Kamte, Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief Karkare and senior inspector Vijay Salaskar in the Rang Bhawan Lane of Mumbai. Vinita also claims that Karkare’s repeated pleas for reinforcement to block the passage of the terrorists fleeing Cama Hospital went unheeded for over an hour.

Who Killed Karkare?: The Real Face of Terrorism in India is a book published in October 2009 by S. M. Mushrif, a former senior Maharashtra Police officer who had previously uncovered the Telgi scam. The Times of India called it controversial, Mushrif claims that Karkare was killed in a conspiracy hatched by the Intelligence Bureau to pave way for the appointment of their favoured K. P. Raghuvanshi as ATS chief to thwart investigations against the Hindu hardliners allegedly involved in Malegaon blast of 2006.

In 2018, the Bombay High Court discarded a pending petition that had claimed that Karkare was not gunned down by terrorists Ajmal Kasab and Abu Ismail.