“Today is my day. I will show them what it is...” This is what Mumbai Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Kamte told his wife, Vinita, around 11 pm on Wednesday. Kamte was apparently at the Chembur Golf Club when his wife called him up on his cellphone from their Rakshak Society residence in Pimple Nilakh.

“I am heading for the terror site... Mala parat phone karoo nako (don’t call me again) and don’t disturb me,” Kamte told Vinita who had rang him up after watching the terror attack being beamed live on television channels.

Narrating the family’s final telephonic conversation with Kamte, a relative said the police officer sounded confident. “But don’t ask me to repeat the words,” said the relative who is inconsolable like several others gathered at Kamte’s residence hours before the body was brought from Mumbai.

The senior police officer also spoke to his father Marutrao Kamte. “I told him...beta, take care of yourself. I asked him to wear a bullet-proof jacket. But he said ‘daddy it is one of those things...don’t worry, everything will be normal’,” said the senior Kamte who reportedly suffers from a heart ailment. “I spoke to Ashok around 11 pm and then handed over the phone to his wife.”

Around 1.30 pm on Thursday, the ACP’s body was brought to Rakshak Scciety which was chock-a-block with mediapersons and a large posse of policemen. Minutes later, the body was taken to the main hall of Kamte’s house. There was stunned silence, and Kamte’s nine-year-old son, Arjun, who was on the second floor, was brought downstairs by a relative. The son leaned on to the body and cried loudly, “Mummy, why is daddy not opening eyes? Why has he closed his eyes?”

... contd.