Author: Naziya Alvi
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: December 29, 2005
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1585652,0008.htm
Lalita stood transfixed as the terrorist aimed
the AK-56 at her. A second later, she found herself pushed to the ground by
someone behind - it was her 61-year-old professor. Most of the 50 rounds that
the terrorist fired hit Professor M.C. Puri, right in his chest.
"He saved my life. If it wasn't for him,
I would have been dead," Lalita, a lecturer at Delhi University's Rajdhani
College, told Puri's wife Raksha on Wednesday night. "They were crossing
the road when the firing started and uncle pushed her and came right in the
line of fire," said Nisha Jaggi, the professor's niece.
His friends remember Puri as the peace-broker.
"We always knew him as a jovial, polite and humble man. But on Wednesday
evening, Puri made the ultimate sacrifice and showed us that he was made of
different stuff," said colleague Ashok Malhotra.
Puri fell to terrorists' bullets at the Indian
Institute of Science on Wednesday. Hundreds of his friends, students and relatives
gathered at his Mount Kailash Apartment in South Delhi's Kailash Colony on
Thursday as his son Saurabh brought the body from Bangalore around 9 p.m.
The family had sent Puri's grandchildren away, hoping to spare them the trauma.
Puri was not just an academic. He was an active
member of the local RWA. "For the past 35 years, a dozen of us - all
college professors - would gather every alternate Sunday and discuss university
issues," said Professor (retd) H.C. Bakshi, who taught at the Motilal
Nehru College. "In fact, he was a great mediator."
Puri started his career at New Delhi's Hansraj
College. Later, he shifted to IIT, Delhi and retired last year after a 20-year
stint. He was also planning to bring out a journal on the Operations Research
Society of India, of which he was one of the founding members.
Puri will be cremated at the Lodhi crematorium
on Friday at 11a.m.
