I can never forget this
incident: CST kiosk owner
Indo-Asian News Service
Mumbai,
Dec 8 (IANS) Saupratap Singh remembers that evening vividly.
He had just taken out the sandwiches from the fridge to keep
it on the counter of his kiosk at the Chhatrapati Shivaji
Terminus (CST) railway station, when he heard loud staccato
bursts. He soon saw people running helter-skelter, people
falling down in pools of blood and realised it was a terrorist
attack.
"I
can never ever forget that incident in my life. Mumbai has
seen terror attacks before, but at CST this was the first
time and I had definitely not seen something so close. I am
just glad that I had come out of it alive," Singh told
IANS, his face clouding with memories of the trauma.
Attired
in a red tee-shirt, like other shopkeepers at the station,
Singh recounted the unfolding of the events on the night of
Nov 26 when two heavily armed terrorists opened fire indiscriminately
at the people, killing at least 58 people in the packed CST
alone.
"It
was late in the evening and I was taking out sandwiches from
the fridge and keeping it on the counter, when I suddenly
heard loud noises. At first I thought it must have been a
bomb blast because immediately thereafter people started running
helter skelter.
"I
immediately ducked and waited for a few seconds crouching
behind the counter. Thankfully, since my shop is near the
exit gate, I ran out and kept running till I reached the nearby
Azad Maidan," Singh said with dramatic gestures, almost
reliving the moment.
That
night, Singh was just one of the many other shopkeepers of
CST who took refuge under the open skies in the open grounds
of Azad Maidan.
R.S.
Rajavatsa, another shopkeeper at the station, recounted the
horror of that evening.
"We
are just glad that we came out of it alive. That night we
spent praying and hoping at the Maidan that things get over.
The next morning, we came back to the station and took the
train home...after pulling down the shutters of the shop of
course," Rajavatsa told IANS.
Weren't
they scared to take the train from the station which saw bloodshed
just the night before?
"The
trains had resumed service, and we simply took the train home.
Our families were very scared and our aim was to just reach
home. Scared, yes. That incident will always remain with us,"
Singh said.
"The
crowd has come back to the station, and we have resumed our
business, but we can never forget that night. That's all we
keep talking about most of the times," said Singh, who
attends to hundreds of customers thronging the station that
sees 500,000 people pass through it every day.
The
terror assault in Mumbai, which lasted 60 hours, left 172
people dead and the city shaken and scarred.
Indo-Asian
News Service
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