Day After blast: Diplomat's driver says he answered call of duty

NEW DELHI: A day after living the horror of the Aurangzeb Road blast, Supreme Court lawyer Manjeet Singh was back at work. The 79-year-old who walked into the court premises at 10 o' clock sharp, recounted the experience.

"I heard a loud noise and my right window shattered in a spray of glass," said the retired customs officer who used his knowledge of law to start practice late in life. "I was hit and felt my face bleeding. Somebody was screaming and I was pulled out of the car and rushed to hospital." His son, Jagjeet, said the family was in the dark about Manjeet's condition till he called them from hospital. "We watched the news on TV but it did not occur to us that he could be the victim of a terror attack."

Manjeet was returning home from Supreme Court in his client Arun Sharma's Indica car when the bomb ripped the rear of the Innova waiting near them for the traffic signal to turn green. For Sharma, 61, the shock of the blast seemed to have stopped time itself. His hands froze on the steering wheel as his ears went numb and glass hit his face. "I will never forget this. The capital never felt so unsafe," he said.

Manoj Sharma, the driver of the targeted Innova, also said the trauma was more mental than physical. Before tending to his own wounds, Sharma had helped his employer, Tal Yehoshua-Koren, out of the vehicle. "It's been a year since I was hired as their driver. Madam was on her way to pick up the kids. We came out of the embassy and then headed for American Embassy School. The thought that we were vulnerable didn't cross our minds."

The star witness of the case, who saw the bomber pasting something on the Innova, refused to talk.