 |
| |
WEEKLY
SECTIONS |
 |
|
 |
| A few men with guns |
|
|
|
Part I
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Aakar Patel
The writer is a former newspaper editor who lives in Bombay. Among the papers he has edited is Mid-day, an afternoon paper that is published from the city
The men who attacked Bombay knew who they were looking for – and they knew where to find them. Cafe Leopold on the Colaba Causeway, the first place attacked on Wednesday (Nov 26), is where foreign tourists have their beers. The Leopold is one of the few places – perhaps the only place – in this city where patrons must pay before they get service. This suits the foreigner who is used to self-service; it irritates the Indian whose honour is hurt by the demand that he demonstrate his solvency.
The Indian stays away. This suits the foreigner further and he is the cafe's main patron.
The attackers came to the Leopold from a lane that connects it to the Gateway of India, where a long shoulder of land holds back the sea. On the southern edge of this sits the Taj, built in 1903, owned by the Tatas and easily the finest hotel in India. At the other end of the strip is a jetty where the attackers landed in a Zodiac, a rubber dinghy with an outboard motor, at a little past 9 pm on Wednesday.
They came by sea because they were each carrying two heavy rucksacks filled with grenades and magazines for their assault rifles. They split up. The first headed straight for the Taj. A second struck left and, after attacking Leopold moved on to the Oberoi Trident at Nariman Point, next to the National Centre for Performing Arts.
Another group broke off to the right and went to the Victoria Terminus, the busiest railway station in India. Built in the Gothic style, it is the most beautiful building the British gifted India. There the attackers, two young men wearing T-shirts with English print on them, cargo pants with large pockets and nylon rucksacks hung front and back, shot down people waiting to catch the train back home.
The two men were photographed by journalists of the Times of India, whose office is directly opposite Victoria Terminus. The pictures show the men's faces alert and determined. One picture shows one man smiling, another shows the same man with his face set in a grimace of anger. This man has a red friendship band on his right wrist. The magazine of his assault rifle has plastic tape around it. The men are in their early 20s and fair.
A photograph taken on Thursday morning after the massacre shows the luggage and footwear scattered. It is cheap: tied-up suitcases, little cloth bundles and plastic bags and sandals.
After this killing, the men went across the road to the Metro cinema where they attacked the premises of the Cama Hospital. This duo is thought to have shot the chief of the anti-terror squad of the Bombay police, Hemant Karkare. They took a police jeep and then drove on either to join the group at the Oberoi Trident or at the Nariman Bhavan, next to it, where a family of New York Jews was taken hostage.
The jeep was driven down with gunfire coming out of it. People on the streets, who assumed that the police jeep was friendly, were cut down by these men as they drove past, casually letting off rounds from the window.
At 10 pm on Wednesday, the newspaper editors of Bombay were gathered at the Colaba Parsi Agiary, just beyond Nariman Point. They were celebrating the wedding of Bachi Karkaria's son. Bachi is an editor with the Times of India. DNA's Ayaz Memon, Times of India's Dina Vakil, the Mumbai Mirror's Meenal Baghel, the Asian Age's Olga Tellis, the Economic Times's Vikram Doctor and Maharashtra Times's Bharat Kumar Raut were present.
Once the explosions began, the Indian Navy, which controls the area, blocked it off and the editors were unable to return to their newsdesks for the most important story of the year till 1 am, when their deadline was gone. One editor who was invited but did not attend was the Times of India Delhi's Sabina Sehgal Saikia. She had a room in the Taj Mahal hotel and has not been heard from since that night.
A couple of kilometres away from the Agiary, a silver Skoda Laura was carjacked, perhaps by the group that left the Leopold, and this was intercepted by the police. One man was killed and another captured. This man was taken to the commissioner's office for interrogation. He holds the clues to who these men were, what they sought to achieve and who paid them.
By 11 pm, the siege began at the Taj, the Oberoi Trident and Nariman Bhavan. It would continue into Friday. Most people who died in the attack died in these buildings. Over 150 people would be killed by grenades and gunfire.
The attackers numbered 20, according to the chief minister, and they were trained in combat. A lieutenant general of the Indian army briefing the press said on Friday morning that the pattern of gunfire coming from the Taj showed the presence of one attacker who was moving across two floors, which included a large, open dance area. He had switched the lights off on these floors and was moving into and out of rooms as he let off bursts of gunfire and grenades.
Fourteen policemen died. Three were officers. The others were men whom the government had equipped with bolt-action Lee Enfield rifles, used in the First World War. They were expected to stop men using assault rifles.
Minutes before he was killed, anti-terror chief Karkare was filmed taking off his helmet and talking on the mobile phone, before putting it back on. Also killed was Vijay Salaskar, Bombay police's encounter specialist. He had killed over 50 criminals but he wasn't trained to combat men who were not trying to run from him.
When it was clear that the Bombay police was out of its depth, the government asked for help from Delhi which dispatched its best soldiers, the men of the NSG Commando, the Black Cats. Even these, the elite of the Indian army, were equipped partially with clumsy SLR rifles, meant for field warfare. As the Indian army cleared Kargil peak by peak, its soldiers took on a preference for the Kalashnikovs they took from dead jihadis, preferring them to the enormous SLR, made in the 70s.
The long siege of Bombay ended on Friday. We will know of the cost of the attack and we will know of the consequence. Its patrons will hope the Taj, burnt and battered, reopens. It is a symbol of our city's culture, its quality, its ambition.
The best French restaurant in India is in the Taj, the Zodiac Grill. Its Camembert Dariole is a cheese cocoon, with the texture of spun silk. Its meat course is preceded by a sorbet, to wash the palate clean. The Taj knows quality and it knows service.
Fifteen of the Taj's staff died trying to protect their guests.
Harish Manwani, the chairman of Hindustan Lever was in the hotel and unreachable. A relative of his called his cellphone which was switched off. On a whim, she tried the front desk of the hotel.
At 3 am on Thursday morning, five hours into the attack, with gunfire and grenade explosions going on above her, the receptionist picked up the phone at the Taj and said: "Good morning, the Taj."
A few men with guns cannot change Bombay.
(To be continued)
Email: aakar.patel@ gmail.com
|
|
|
| Back
| Send
this story to Friend | Print
Version |
|
|
|
ISSN 1563-9479 
