Kavita at a protest against terrorism at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai. (File picture)

Mumbai, Jan. 5 (PTI): Hemant Karkare’s wife Kavita today said she wished he hadn’t joined the anti-terrorism squad as she spoke of the family’s pain at losing him to terrorists’ bullets.

“I feel proud about my husband’s sacrifice but we have paid a hard price for it. It is very painful because I am 50-plus and at this age I really needed my husband,” Kavita said six weeks after the Maharashtra ATS chief was killed during the Mumbai attacks.

She portrayed Karkare, criticised for arresting people with Sangh parivar links for the Malegaon blast, as a “strong person” who inherited “a mix of” the BJP and communist ideologies from his parents.

Kavita said she had initially been angry after the Mumbai attacks. “But now I think I am overcoming the anger. We should come together and do something constructive.”

She, however, added: “It has been very difficult for the children. My elder daughter, who’s married, has her family to help her, but my younger daughter and my son (17 years old) are finding it difficult to cope. The first month we were in too much grief — at night they would cry, get angry, and I allowed them to show their emotions so that they could calm down.”

She said her younger daughter thought that Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist, should be given a chance to understand the gravity of his actions.

Kavita added that she “strongly regretted” Karkare’s decision to join the ATS. “When he took up the ATS job, I knew from his nature and uprightness that he would go in front and fight. It’s a very risky job. I used to tell him to apply for a UN job.”

She said Karkare “wasn’t under pressure, from what I understood” over the Malegaon probe.

“He was not confused; his ideas, his ideology was fixed. Even the investigations were going smoothly, he had finished his work,” she said.

“He was criticised by various political parties, by people from every side. It was humiliating and sorrowful for us. But I know my husband was right. He had proof, so he was comfortable.”

Kavita added: “His upbringing was such... his mother was from the BJP and his father had communist ideologies, but they never argued. So he had a mix of both — that’s why he took the decision of investigating the Malegaon blast. For any other officer it would have been different.”

She said she last saw her husband putting on a helmet and a bullet-proof jacket on the night of November 26, and that every time she saw them now she wondered whether better equipment could have saved his life.