MUMBAI UNDER SIEGE!!! Mujaheedin strike the commercial capital of India!

Over 100 dead, over 300 injured!

Pictures:the CSRT railway terminus, an UNESCO heritage site-several commuters were indiscriminately sprayed with bullets and injured/killed-(?) inside;
the magnificent Taj Palace Hotel and Taj Towers with the Gateway of India in good times; an old picture of the Taj rear side-(IT IS NOT A SQUARE/BLOCK STRUCTURE AS PROJECTED BY THE MEDIA); the Taj today, victim of terrorism.
Update: Saturday, 29/11/2008
160 dead .............Indian authorities are probably upto their old game, they are known to submit official figures like dead and injured numbers close to the real numbers much later.

And this is proving closer to home to so many of us..........my son's yoga teacher in Pune has lost her son, killed by these aweful terrorists; he was a manager at the Taj Palace Hotel. A very close friend of mine here in NZ reports his nephew with family and friends have holed up in a hotel close to the Trident Oberoi, they were having dinner there when this happened.
But I like what that great doctor and philosopher, Dr Deepak Chopra, said on CNN yesterday: this is ultimately a message to Washington; this is two sided, the same petro dollars go through Saudi to Pakistan and then to these terror groups; the muslims make up 25% of the world's population and the fastest growing group..........don't do things that would make a moderate become radical..............make sure they are won over, that would lead to an end to terrorism.


Below:Wednesday and Thursday, the 26th. and the 27th. of November 2008.


This is, this far, the worst terrorist attack on India; notwithstanding the large number of previous terrorist attacks, some very recent, in New Delhi and Assam, this one takes a new turn; several large very well known iconic places targetted, with the terrorists implanting themselves for a prolonged siege, providing a shield for themselves by taking hostages, AK rifles and grenades, not rudimentary or text book bombs, and probably confusing intelligence services and the world at large by "presenting" themselves as a little known outfit, the Deccan Mujaheedin." THIS IS NOT A GUERRILLA OPERATION BUT A FRONTLINE WAR!


India's premier railway station, built in 1888, and now placed on the UNESCO list of heritage structures, two of the best hotels, one a heritage hotel that had opened for business in 1903, cinemas, suburban locations........this is a very well planned and coordinated attack, and worst, has also target ted foreigners............as I write this, rather rewrite/rephrase this, a hostage crisis still remains unresolved at the two hotels and some other places.


I am stunned and grieved; nothing absolutely nothing compares to this.........I would rate it the worst attack since 9/11, and certain ways of looking at it, its worst.

To people familiar with Mumbai/Bombay, and I am "born and bred Bombayite," the extent and scale of operation can be modestly described as awesome, my guess, some hundred terrorists involved.

The scale of the attack, in terms of the area covered, some of the busiest locations in Mumbai, 24 by 7, is unprecedented; I should know, I have lived 57 years there and in Pune. And this made far worse by the taking of hostages, including foreigners, from several locations...........this is new, terrorism taking a new turn in the way it intends to operate in this region.

Two hotels, the Taj Palace Hotel and the Oberoi Trident, two of the best in India, India's busiest railway terminus, the CSRT, which is officially an UNESCO World Heritage site, the classical Metro Cinema, at one time the pride project, in Asia, of MGM studios; and horror of horrors, a medium sized hospital, the Cama hospital which, as far as I know, from the time I lived in Mumbai, specialised in maternity care!!!

At a very personal level, I am particularly shocked at seeing the well loved Taj Mahal Palace Hotel(see here its history) on fire...............this heritage hotel built, in 1903, by a great son of India, recognised there as the "father of Indian Industry," Jamsetji Tata, and a great icon for myself, as Jamsetji was a great Parsi and a visionary who did not live to see his dream of an economically independent India, (steel, textiles, electric power generation, scientific research initiated during his lifetime..........the present Tata group covers a huge range of economic interests rivalled only by a huge amount of scholarships and charities by them .................his descendents, JRD Tata, founded Air India, and now Ratan Tata, equally a visionary of sorts, has conceptualised, and put on the production line, the world's cheapest car, the Nano, priced at somewhere around US$ 3500.00!!!)

The Taj Hotel is to hotels, what the Buckingham Palace or Versailles is, compared to some of those new glitzy palaces of the oil rich Sheikhs!!! .........it "houses" some, now rare wood work, intricate stone work and marble lattice work, rare furniture and rare paintings, and a feel of heritage in its architecture...............and as I could guess, from pictures on CNN and BBC, its right wing, the Radio Club end, is on fire.

Memories of great times at the Taj, dining at the pricey Rendevouz restaurant (I think I have done that just twice, very unaffordable,) or coffee at the Coffee Shop on the first floor, with a superb view of the harbour, or munching on some of the best cakes and savouries from La Pattisserie; and a more "emotional" connection, my father was posted there at the CitiBank branch for a few years from his 35 year career at the Citi.

The Leopold Cafe, on the main Colaba Causeway road, behind the Taj, a family run restaurant by Zoroastrian Iranian emigres, renovated and styled to attract dinners from the Taj and other hotels, also came under attack...........this single piece of evidence points to the fact that these terrorists did their homework.........my guess Leopold is, even to the present day, a 100 table affair, but has attracted foreigners who frequent here for modestly priced food and beer........not otherwise a target deserving the attention of terrorists, but the knowledge that foreigners dine here the deciding factor to target this joint.

I live in NZ, and would not be right to use my blog to cover live these horrible events taking place in Mumbai; that coverage should rightly be left to bloggers and others living in Mumbai.......

The Indian authorities will now have to come up with more dynamic and effective intelligence gathering, with more active liaison and cooperation with and support from international intelligence agencies, more alert to terrorist warnings and messages, and a more efficient security check up at all sensitive locations....................breast beating, loud protests and promises to do better in the future, these wont work.