Never again will any member of the Waghela family offer water to a thirsty stranger.
At 10 pm on Wednesday, an unsuspecting Thakur Budhabhai Waghela, 33, a sweeper employed at GT Hospital, was sitting down for his dinner when there was a knock on the door.
When he opened the door, a stranger asked him for water to drink. After having the glass of water offered to him, the stranger shot Waghela dead at point-blank range in front of his six-year-old son, Yash.
“We had been hearing the sound of firing for some time and we afraid when we heard a shot very close to our house,” said Bhavesh, Waghela’s younger brother who lives next door on Badruddin Tayyabji Road. “However, none of us ventured out of our homes. All of a sudden, Yash came in and said his father had been shot.”
Pointing at a bullethole in the wall of his house, Bhavesh said the terrorists fired randomly as they ran on Badruddin Tayyabji Road - a small bylane off DN Road that leads to the back entrance of Cama Hospital.
“I saw two terrorists from about 15 feet away. One was short and the other tall. They were wearing caps, blue and black jackets with lots of pockets in them. They also carried a backpack,” Bhavesh said. The terrorists appeared to be in their 20s. They were young and ran fast shouting abuses and firing shots randomly as they ran past our homes, he said.
“There was nothing we could do. We were too scared to go out. Finally, we rushed him to GT Hospital, but it was too late.”
Waghela is survived by his wife, and three children, Yash, 6, Dhaval, 9, and Roshni, 12. Waghela and Yash were at home while his wife had taken their two other children to a relative’s place in Titwala.
