Natwarlal Rotawan was at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) with his two children on November 26 when Ajmal Kasab and his partner arrived. Fifteen weeks later, they are still at the station.

They keep their belongings in the lockers and roam the city during the day. At night, Rotawan buys platform tickets for all of them, and they sleep in the waiting room.

11-year-old Devika can’t forget that night. As the terrorists sprayed the platforms with bullets, she was shot in the leg. She spent over a month in JJ Hospital.

“I don’t like staying here,” she says. “The memories of that night don’t leave me. I jump when I hear loud noises. I can’t stop thinking someone like that can come again and shoot all of us dead.”

But her father, a dry fruits merchant who works out of Mumbai but does not have a permanent business establishment here, explains why he has no choice but to stay at the station.

On 26/11, Rotawan, a widower, had come to CST with Devika and her brother Aakash to catch a train to Pune, where they have family. They had vacated their rented home in Bandra, and had intended to find a new place when they returned to Mumbai. They never left, and after Devika was hit, spent the rest of last year in her hospital ward.

“Devika was discharged on January 2,” Rotawan told The Indian Express. “On January 4, we caught a train to my native place in Rajasthan, and returned on January 30. I had business for about a week here, but no place to stay. So until February 6, we slept on the platform, after which we left for our village again. We returned to Mumbai on February 19, and spent a few more days at the station. We then left for the third time, and returned on March 5. Since then, we have been staying here.”

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