Just one doctor from within its ranks was available to the National Security Guard (NSG) as 477 of its elite Black Cat commandos fought the 60-hour-long battle at three different venues during the 26/11 Mumbai terror siege.

This startling revelation came from former NSG Director General Jyoti Krishan Dutt to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk The Talk programme broadcast today — the first part was shown last week.

Dutt, who retired last February, said he would have liked at least one doctor at each of the three sites that were struck. While many of the NSG’s injured commandos had to be rushed to local hospitals for medical aid, Dutt, speaking to The Sunday Express, said the matter came up during the debriefing after the operations.

“Over the years, the number of medical officers has been reduced in the name of rationalization. At one point, we had 29. The number first came down to 24, then 22 and finally to 16,” Dutt said. “Under government rules, if a particular post lies vacant for a given period, it is abolished. This is what happened with NSG as many posts of Medical Officers were abolished. We took up the matter with the government and pressed for the numbers to be increased. If you don’t get personnel to fill up vacant posts, it does not mean the need for those posts is not there. We tried to keep the issue alive and the government is considering our demand sympathetically,” he added.

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