On the 12th anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack on Thursday, Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray inaugurated the Martyrs’ Gallery which showcases the 797 police personnel killed in the line of duty including those policemen who died in the 2008 attack by Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists.
Thackeray and Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari also paid floral tributes to the martyrs at the 26/11 memorial site at the Mumbai Police Gymkhana in south Mumbai. The chief minister also unveiled a coffee table book on the police department at an event in Mumbai.
The ceremony was attended by the family members of the fallen police and security personnel. In view of the pandemic, only a limited number of people attended the event.
Thackeray while speaking at the launch of the coffee table book ‘Unmatched Valour’ recalled the night of the Mumbai terror attack. “I was in Dhule-Nashik for elections and I heard that there was some problem in Mumbai. There was shoot-out going on. I called Vijay Salaskar who told me that he had just returned home and was leaving again. I spoke to him twice later, but then upon trying later he did not answer,” Thackeray said. Salaskar was one of the police officers who was killed by the terrorists.
Thackeray also told home minister Anil Deshmukh that the Martyrs’ Gallery that was inaugurated in the city should be replicated in other parts of the state as well.
{{/usCountry}}Thackeray also told home minister Anil Deshmukh that the Martyrs’ Gallery that was inaugurated in the city should be replicated in other parts of the state as well.
{{/usCountry}}Deshmukh said that the coffee table was brought out to document the work that the police carry out. He added that the department is planning a change of guard ceremony at Maharashtra police headquarters.
“Like the Buckingham Palace change of guard is a tourist attraction, we want to make guard mounting in Mumbai a similar attraction for tourists,” he said