Her cast is off, her crutches abandoned in a corner of the house. Though she knows the bullet scars on her leg may remain for life, Devika Natwarlal Rotawan is determined to leave the memories of 26/11 behind.

The ten-year-old had been hit at CST while trying to flee the firing from Ajmal Kasab’s AK-47. A few months later, she left the terrorist shamefaced by testifying against him in court. Now, she is amid her schoolbooks and crayons, her family keen to give her a normal childhood.

“It has been an eventful year that changed my life... the two months we stayed at CST for want of a home, the two Bandra houses we moved into, one at the congested Dyaneshwar Nagar and the present one near Cardinal School. And the second most important event in my life came the day I came face to face with the shooter. It is yet to sink in that almost a year has passed,” Devika says.

Devika, her widowed father Natwarlal and her brother Akash were at CST to catch a train to Pune when she got shot. The family got around Rs 1.4 lakh as compensation, besides free treatment, and the incident kept them in the public glare for months.

Devika’s father Natwarlal agreed the incident and his outburst against Kasab in court catapulted them into instant fame, which acted as a balm on the family’s frayed nerves. “I was famous locally among merchant circles for my dry fruits, but my family got international recognition after the incident,” said Rotawan who had abused Kasab in court and demanded he be hanged, on June 10, when his daughter was to depose.

... contd.