“Firing at the criminal at the time of shootout was my duty as a policeman. At the hospital, I was performing my humanitarian duty.”
Something happened in Delhi that’ll make you believe that humanity really does exist. And not just exists, but sometimes, it trumps all.
For the residents of Ahinsa Vihar Apartments in Rohini Sector 9, last night might have looked like something right out of a crime scene from a film.
Source: Wikimedia
After spotting two men with backpacks trying to scale a boundary wall of the housing block around 4am, the police were informed immediately and soon, Assistant Sub-inspector Ramashray Singh, Head Constable Rajesh Kumar and Constable Ashok reached the spot.
According to the Hindustan Times, 24 year-old Nitin and his accomplice Salman were cornered by the policemen. The two managed to buy some time by climbing a wall and jumping onto the road outside, but their ploy failed and they ended up face to face with their pursuers. Finally, the suspects, in their final bid to escape, took out their guns and opened fire.
“A bullet whizzed past my left ear and I pulled the trigger in self-defence. My colleague, ASI Ramashray, too began firing,” Ashok told HT.
During the shootout, nine rounds of bullets were fired by him and Ramashray with their service revolvers, severely injuring Nitin in one of his legs, both arms and lower back. However, it was that lone bullet lodged into his back that did the maximum damage and put an end to the firing. His accomplice, in the meantime, had managed to escape, said Rishi Pal, Deputy Commissioner of Police.
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All the three men on duty probably had a close shave with death and could have have chosen not to help someone who shot at them. However, they rushed him to the nearest hospital, where he was taken into surgery to remove the bullets.
SS Rathee, the station house officer of Prashant Vihar police station, who was present at the Ambedkar hospital where Nitin was taken into surgery, had first volunteered to donate blood. “Doctors said he would survive but required three or four units of blood,” Rathee explained to HT.
Upon Rathee’s request, both Rajesh and Ashok, without thinking twice, gave blood. “Firing at the criminal at the time of shootout was my duty as a policeman. At the hospital, I was performing my humanitarian duty,” Ashok told HT.
Despite receiving 4 units of blood, Nitin, a native of Kasganj district in Uttar Pradesh, about whom the doctors had initially shown hope for survival, could not make it and succumbed after a long surgery.
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