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'Where are the bulletproof jackets, Mr CM?'
Have we learnt any lessons from the 26/11 terror attacks?" Sandeep Patil, a resident of Dombivali, a township near Mumbai, wants to know. He has come to receive one of his friends at the Chhattrapati Shivaji Terminus on the night of November 26. "I only fear that if such an attack were to take place again, then how can the police force stationed here to protect us do its job?" he asks with some anger. "Why aren't the policemen here not wearing bulletproof jackets?" he demands. He has observed almost 100 policemen guarding the CST station on the night of the first anniversary of last year's terror attacks, but none of them are wearing a bulletproof jacket. "If such an attack takes place again then I am sure their names too will enter the list of martyrs," he says wryly. He contends that ordinary people like himself fail to comprehend the measures the Maharashtra government has taken to provide police personnel with advanced protective gear. He has a pertinent question for the chief minister and home minister of Maharashtra: "Where are the bulletproof jackets that could save the precious lives of our policemen?" "How can the police save the lives of ordinary people when they don't have enough safety gear to protect their own lives?" he asks.