Kirit Ajmera - He has survived the 1993 Mumbai Blast, 2001 Gujarat Earthquake and the 2006 Mumbai Train Blasts

He survived the 1993 serial blasts that rocked Mumbai. He also survived the Gujarat earthquake in 2001. Marketing consultant Kirti Ajmera managed to flirt with death on 7/11/2006 as well. The fifty-year-old would have been one of the casualties (or dead) if he had boarded one of the bombed trains on the fateful 7/11 in Mumbai. Though extremely bitter that the government did not compensate him with even a penny for his sufferings, his advice to 7/11 Mumbai blast victims and their families is to remain positive. In an exclusive interview to Timesofindia.Com, Ajmera talks about how he coped with the trauma. He also seeks medical opinion on what can be done to cure a skin disease called Keloid, which he is currently suffering.

Where were you on 7/11 when the serial train blasts took place in Mumbai?

If I had not decided to stay back at Churchgate (the starting point for all the bombed trains) for a while, I would have been in one the bombed first-class coaches of the ill-fated trains! I was about to board the Borivili-bound train that later suffered in the blast when a friend called me on my cell and I lingered on the platform to talk to him. After I finished I saw that the train had already become crowded so (I) decided to take the next train. God wants me to survive and so every time I escape death. I even escaped the 2001 Gujarat earthquake. There must be some reason why the Almighty is saving me every time.


Did you receive any compensation from the government after being seriously hurt in the 1993 bomb blast?

I did not get anything from the state; not even a penny. They did not even approach to inquire whether I was dead or alive. And they cannot pretend that they do not know about me because, in the last 13 years, almost all TV channels and the print media have carried my interview. I have been operated upon more than 40 times in the last 13 years and incurred an expenditure of around Rs 18-20 lakhs on my treatment. When my relatives approached them for compensation, they were curtly told to return the Rs 2 lakh compensation from the government after I died. Such was the insensitiveness of the authorities.


How did you come in the line of the blast that rocked Mumbai on March 12, 1993?

I had to meet somebody at the National Stock Exchange at Dalal Street (South Mumbai). I was about ten feet away from the entrance door when a deafening blast went off on my right side, and it went searing through the right side of my body. It came from a truck-laden RDX that was supposedly parked in the basement.
Several glasses pierced my body and I saw that my right hand was hanging from the joint. I held it with my left hand and ran out. I was bleeding profusely and faced certain death. I knew I was very critical and would collapse any moment. But I kept going.
There was not a soul alive on the street. There must have been at least 500 dead bodies strewn on the road (though the official figures said much less). Luckily, amidst the chaos and confusion, I managed to hail the only cab rushing past me. Thereafter, I went to two hospitals and was denied admission because they were brimming with injured (many of whom were not seriously injured).