Let’s remember the man who saved India from a Potential Riot
By: Ripudaman Singh Kushwah
Tags: Patriotism, Sacrifice, Courage, Terrorism, National Security

Today it’s been 12 years since the attacks happened on Mumbai. Let’s look at the story of a braveheart who sacrificed his life defending the country and left behind a legacy.

Twelve years have passed since the horrendous 26/11 attacks shook the soul of India in 2008. Many lives lost, many wounded, and many grieved. Mumbai moved on, India moved on. But the acts of heroism committed on that day will always be remembered with great pride. The courage shown by a few brave men and women will go down in history of India as inspiring stories of grit, bravery, and patriotism. In this article, I would like to throw light upon one such braveheart, ASI Tukaram Omble; and the reason why his sacrifice was so crucial in the larger scheme of things.

To understand this, let me give you some background. On 26th November 2008, a group of Lashkar-e-Taiba (a terror outfit based out of Pakistan) terrorists came via the Arabian Sea to the shores of Mumbai and spread into different places with AK-47s and other weapons of that grade. It was a well-coordinated attack wherein the perpetrators targeted places with high density of people — which is pretty easy to find in Mumbai. Long story short, the terrorists opened fired at innocent people killing and wounding many in the process. As soon as the Mumbai Police and other government agencies were alerted, they sprung into action, and that is where it starts to get interesting. Senior officers of the Mumbai Police Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) namely Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, and Ashok Kamte along with a few others got into a vehicle looking for Ajmal Kasab and Ismail Khan. These two had already wreaked havoc on the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus railway station where they had opened fire with their AK-47s on innocent citizens. The ATS officers and the two terrorists got into a firefight, but probably due to superior weapon systems, all officers and other men in the vehicle except one, Constable Arun Jadhav, were martyred on the spot. Kasab and Khan took that vehicle and started firing wherever they went. Later they abandoned this vehicle and hijacked another car.

Jadhav while still alive but pretending to be dead in front of Kasab and Khan, alerted Mumbai Police Control Room about this and also informed about the direction of Kasab and Khan’s new vehicle. By this time, Mumbai Police, the people of Mumbai, and rest of India, maybe even rest of the world, had realized the gravity of the matter. Everyone knew that India was under attack, and that it is serious. Mumbai Police barricaded the road which was taken by Kasab and Khan to block their way and engage them. The Mumbai Police was angry and ready, some of their best officers had just laid their lives down few minutes ago, and this had to be avenged. Of the many officers and other ranks on this checkpost was, you guessed it, ASI Tukaram Omble. So, what exactly did he do?

Let’s look at this: The Mumbai Police unit was waiting for the car hijacked by Kasab and Khan, when they saw the said car coming, they asked it to stop, the car stopped only to realize that it couldn’t move forward with the heavy police barricade. The car tried to take a U-turn and ended up banging itself on the road divider, that’s when a mini gun battle took place between the terrorists and the Police. One terrorist, Khan, died on the spot. The other one, Kasab, pretended to be dead, but was alive, very much alive. The police party moved forward slowly but cautiously. When they reached the door of the car, ASI Tukaram Omble realized that Kasab was alive and he still had a loaded AK-47 in his hands. Kasab tried to open fire on the handful of policemen that were near the car at the moment. And this is when ASI Tukaram Omble took a decision that changed the course of history. When Kasab opened fire, Omble jumped on to Kasab and held tightly on to the barrel of Kasab’s assault rifle taking all fire on himself and didn’t let it go. Kasab fired on Omble’s chest and belly atleast 40 times with his AK, but still Omble didn’t let go. In those few seconds, other men of the Mumbai Police hit Kasab with their service provided Lathis and disarmed Kasab, and only then did Omble let go. This video is a good dramatic recreation of this event from the movie, “The attacks of 26/11”.

ASI Tukaram Omble made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the nation and was posthumously awarded the Ashok Chakra — India’s highest peacetime gallantry award, India’s peacetime equivalent of the Param Vir Chakra. Perhaps, it was the Army background of Omble that led him do this. Many don’t know that before joining the Police Force in 1991 as a Constable, Tukaram Omble was a Naik in the Indian Army’s Signal Corps. Probably it was the sense of service at the cost of one’s own life instilled in the Army that prompted Omble to not worry about his own life and take in all bullets from the AK-47.

Coming to the main agenda, why would I call him the man who saved India from a Potential Riot. Let’s understand this. Very recently Pakistan has finally admitted to sponsoring the attacks. Now, it is very clear that Pakistan has been on an all out agenda to hurt India in as many ways as possible. But, due to the bravery of ASI Tukaram Omble on that day, Pakistan was once again unsuccessful. India was able to catch Kasab alive, and that gave us some very important intelligence inputs, and some dangerous pieces of information. A Police Officer who interrogated Kasab said that Kasab admitted that all the terrorists that came on 26/11 were wearing a kalava (a sacred Hindu thread worn on the wrist), thus pretending to be “Bhagwaa Aatankvaadi”, or Hindu Terrorists. So far, terrorist attacks had come from some radicalized and brain-washed extremist Muslims. The real purpose of this attack was to bring in this new concept of Hindu Terror, and ultimately spark a communal Hindu-Muslim riot in India. I must say, a very clever trick from Pakistan. The plan was that these radicalized terrorists from Pakistan will die on the Indian soil and their death will reveal their fake identity as Hindus coming from Bangalore and other parts of India. This article has all details. As soon as these fake identities would be revealed, a riot would spark across India. That was the real plan.

Just let this sink in for a moment, and think about this, very deeply. The identity of India as a country rests on the responsible shoulders of its citizens. We need to be very careful about what information we are fed and what kind of forces are after our national integrity. Irrespective of religion or caste, Indians are patriotic people, this needs to be understood very clearly. A lot of the hate mongering that goes around needs to stop right away. The military establishment of this country understands this, but the civilians are a little clueless. As Major Gaurav Arya points out here that we depend a lot on hand me downs, this needs to stop. We need to be far more educated and aware of what’s really going on, that is the only way break-India forces can be stopped. Otherwise, people like ASI Tukaram Omble will keep giving their lives and those who want to harm this country will keep leveraging the ignorance of this country’s people. Let’s start to be more aware, let us make sure that the sacrifice of so many brave warriors does not go in vain. And all that we need to do in order to achieve this is go beyond what the Politicians say, and do some fact digging for ourselves. Use social media and Internet searches to find out and talk about the truth, and not just to circulate whatever message(s) you get.

I would like to end with final words of tribute for ASI Tukaram Omble. I once read somewhere that a soldier doesn’t die when the enemy’s bullet kills him, he dies when his countrymen forget him. Let us not forget the sacrifice of ASI Tukaram Omble and countless others who fought multiple battles to safeguard this great nation. In their honor, the least we can do is become an informed population and not fight with each other for someone else’s gain.

Shaheed Tukaram Omble Amar Rahe! Jai Hind!