26/11 Mumbai attack witness moves HC, seeks compensation

Devika Rotawan (21), is the youngest survivor and an eye-witness to the November 26, 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai

Devika Rotawan (21), the youngest survivor and an eye-witness to the November 26, 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai, has moved the Bombay high court (HC),seeking direction to Maharashtra government to allot residential premises for her impoverished family and also to make provision for her undergraduate education.

ecurity personnel's ’Operation Cyclone’ following the terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008. (PTI)

Rotawan has filed a petition through advocate Utsav Bains in high court. The petition has expressed apprehension that her family would have to face homelessness because they had not been able to pay monthly rent for their room in a chawl (tenement) at Subhash Nagar in Mumbai’s Bandra (East) owing to acute financial constraints.

She said because of several morbidities, it was not possible for her father and brother to earn a livelihood and they have defaulted in making their monthly rental payments.

Rotawan, who has recently taken admission to an undergraduate course in humanities at Chetana College in Bandra and plans to pursue a career in civil services, was nine years old at the time of the 2008 Mumbai carnage.

A bullet had pierced her right thigh, as two outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants from Pakistan had fired indiscriminately on passengers at the crowded Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and also hurled grenades at them.

Rotawan, who was to travel with her parents to Pune by a train, fell unconscious shortly after she was hit by a stray bullet.Police took her to the adjoining Saint George’s Hospital, where she underwent six surgeries within a month and a half and was bed-ridden for another six months due to post-operative care.

Rotawan has pleaded before HC that following the Mumbai carnage, several representatives of the Central and state government visited their room in the chawl and assured to provide them accommodation under the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota because of their acute poverty.

The officials, she claimed, also assured to make adequate arrangements for her education, and monetary assistance over and above what was required for her medical treatment.

However, the petition cited that all the government assistance received by her was required to be spent on her treatment and post-operative care.

Her petition cited that despite the fact that she was a victim of a dastardly terrorist attack and she along with her father proved to be key eye-witnesses against Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the sole 26/11 attacker caught alive and hanged to death in November 2012, the authorities did not take care of her family’s needs to date.

In 2009, she had also approached various government authorities requesting them to extend rehabilitative measures for her family and also sent several representations.

“However, all our efforts went in vain,” the petition added.

All kinds of assurances were made, but they turned out to be hollow promises until the 26/11 trial was in progress, the petition stated .

The plea also prayed before HC that rehabilitative measures prove to be elusive after the memories of terror attacks fade from the public’s consciousness because of the absence of a definitive law or policy to safeguard the victims’ needs.