Ombale is my hero: Rahul

"A hero is only necessary when systems fail." This was how young Congress leader Rahul Gandhi put it while attempting to suggest that loss of lives among security forces could have been avoided during the Mumbai terror attack if the system had not failed.

But the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family was effusive in his praise of sub-inspector Tukaram Ombale whom he described as his hero.

"In my eyes, Ombale is the hero. We didn't give him a weapon. We all know that we gave him a lathi. And yet we have given him practically nothing. But when he comes face to face with enemies of our country, he grabbed their gun and allowed us to capture one of them. He gets seven bullets in his stomach and he is gone," Gandhi told top Indian Police Service officers and police reformists including Kiran Bedi at a conclave titled "Police Performance and Public Perception".

Ombale was killed after he took about half a dozen bullets but not before he dispossessed Ajmal Kasab of his weapon enabling his colleagues to capture him alive.