The Mumbai terrorist's calls to the media
During the three-day siege of Mumbai, an Indian television news anchor took a call from one of the suspected attackers, a young man who identified himself as Imran Babar.They sound much like the ravings of irrational religious bigots which they were."You're surrounded. You're definitely going to die. Why don't you surrender?" the anchor at India TV implored him.
The voice on the other end of the line, sounding robotic, rattled off a list of grievances: the 2002 riots in Gujarat state during which more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed; the 1992 demolition of the centuries-old Babri mosque by Hindu mobs; and India's control over part of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.
The caller was holed up in an ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach center where the assailants had taken hostages, according to cellphone records obtained by Indian investigators. "Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir? Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims?" the caller demanded. "We die every day," he told the news anchor. "It's better to win one day as a lion than die this way."
The caller offered the first inkling of why 10 gunmen came ashore in Mumbai last month to carry out a rampage in which 171 people were killed and more than 300 injured. Although investigators say they have established the identity of the attackers, they are still piecing together the assailants' motives.
Indian officials suspect that the group allegedly behind the attack, Pakistan-based Lashkar-i-Taiba, draws support from security and intelligence forces within that country and is fueled by a growing list of grievances that stretch from the 17th century to the subcontinent's partition in 1947, which created the independent nations of India and Pakistan. The grievances also include India's increasingly warm ties with the United States and Israel, counterterrorism experts say. Mumbai police have said that interrogations of the lone gunman captured during the attacks, Ajmal Amir Kasab, have revealed links between the gunmen and Lashkar operational commanders based in Pakistan.
"Lashkar has a very specific pan-Islamic vision: the recovery of all Muslim lands once ruled by Muslims, including India, Central Asia and Spain. And they've gone after those countries that they believe were usurped from traditional Muslim rulers," said Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has been tracking Lashkar since 2001. "The goal is very apocalyptic and simple: attack these enemies and the symbols of those enemies," he said.
"You have a cocktail of radicalization and a pervasive sense of deprivation and injustice," said John Wilson, a senior fellow and terrorism expert at New Delhi's Observer Research Foundation.
Experts pointed out that the attackers targeted the more visible symbols of India's prosperity -- two of Mumbai's most prestigious hotels -- along with the city's only orthodox Jewish outreach center, a busy but relatively obscure building nestled in a crowded alleyway.
"The targets of the killers in Mumbai -- Americans, Brits, Israelis and Indians -- fit exactly into the profile of those that al Qaeda and its partners vilify and plot against," wrote Bruce Riedel, a former South Asia analyst for the CIA and the National Security Council, in a recent article posted on the Brookings Institution Web site.
Another caller reportedly rang India TV several hours before Imran did from inside the Oberoi Trident hotel. He called himself Shadullah and used the cellphone of a Swedish tourist in Room No. 1856, Indian investigators said. "We demand the release of all mujaheddin put in jails. Then will we release these people. Otherwise, we will destroy this place. . . . You must have seen what's happening here," the caller said.
The television station asked, "Do you have the single demand that all mujaheddin arrested be released . . . or do you have any other demand?"
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Intelligence sources said Imran's call to India TV was made from the cellphone of slain Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, head of the Jewish center at the Chabad House. Imran criticized the visit by Israel's army chief, Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi, in September, apparently to give a counterterrorism briefing to Indian officers.
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None of their "grievances" make much sense. Their objections to the Hindu destruction of a mosques is particularly ridiculous when you consider the mosque was built on top of a Hindu holy sight that had been destroyed by Muslims in an attempt to suppress the Hindu religion.
It is much like the Muslim strategy of building a mosque on the sight of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and concocting a myth about Mohammad ascending to heaven from it decades after his death. It is part of the dishonesty of some Muslim myth makers that is twisted into a phony grievance in order to justify mass murder of noncombatants.
The cops were very brave!
ReplyDeleteOne unarmed cop in particular, Tukaram Omble, held on to the captured terrorist's AK-47 with both hands, taking multiple bullets in his intestines, so that he could not fire on the other cops who then subdued him with bamboo sticks.
Some cowardice.
Here's an account from Mumbai chief police officer.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/M...ow/3820436.cms
More than a week after it ended, my mind keeps going over the excruciating details of the eerily well-planned and executed terrorist attack that
caused havoc, pain and misery apart from loss of life in the city we so proudly policed. My heart breaks for the innocent people police battled to save and for the members of the Maharashtra Police family who perished trying to protect them.
The police are among the worst sufferers in this barbaric attack. We lost 15 members of the Maharashtra Police family in one fateful night. But I cannot grieve enough for them because I also mourn for our charges: the great people of this city, who suffered and died that night. Even among these people were my friends. I called my brilliant and quick-witted friend, Anand Bhat, repeatedly for two days and later went to the Oberoi only to find that he had fallen to terrorist bullets. Somewhere, deep inside, I had hoped my lawyer friend's silver tongue would get him out of even this situation.
That day, my colleagues and I rushed after the operation at the Taj ended to be pall-bearers at my colleague and friend Hemant Karkare's funeral. Hemant was so much like the young and idealistic protesters who filled up the Gateway of India, outside my office, days later. Academically brilliant, he gave up a lucrative private-sector career to join the government, serve this country and perhaps to make this supreme sacrifice. I remember him as the gentle, young trainee who wanted to buy a second-hand Luna on loan after an eccentric senior told him not to use official cars to attend parades.
We worked closely during his last assignment as ATS chief and particularly the Malegaon blast investigation. We spoke every day, slowly getting over what seemed like insurmountable hurdles. He did a professional job even through these sensitive and painful times. He was hurt about his motives being questioned but never let it affect investigation, the completion of which would be a tribute to him.
Even at first glance, Ashok Kamte looked every bit like the third generation of a family proudly in uniform. There was always a childlike enthusiasm on his handsome face about carrying his weapons and wearing his uniform.
I remember trying to talk Ashok out of some assignments and into taking the job of running a district as police chief. But at times he preferred daring, armed operations and served in the UN peace-keeping force in Bosnia. Later, when he wanted to join the Indo-Tibet Border Police, I vetoed the plan and he served the state police instead. It speaks volumes of his love for his weapon and his deftness with it that, even when he was caught by surprise by the terrorists that night, he shot at and injured the terrorist which helped catch him alive later.
Ashok was so loved in places where he worked that there was a spontaneous bandh as a mark of respect on his sad demise. One politician narrated an incident when they were addressing a public meeting and, as soon as Ashok arrived to check out security arrangements, people rushed to see him, leaving the politician speaking to an empty stadium.
The sacrifice made by martyrs like Tukaram Omble have meant that the force can hold its head high. I cannot even imagine what went through his head when he faced a terrorist, firing with an AK- 47, with his lathi. What an uneven contest it was; but nothing could match up to his superhuman resolve. Omble rushed at the terrorist, held his firing gun and muzzled it by taking bullets in his body so that other policemen could capture him alive. Getting the terrorist alive yielded invaluable evidence in convincing the world of the perpetrators of the dastardly act of 26/11. Today, the life of that terrorist, Ajmal, is of critical importance not only for this investigation but also helping connect many others with many previous terrorist strikes in India and elsewhere. But I can never forget that it came at the price of a very precious life. I met Omble's four lovely daughters and grieving wife and had tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat but no words.
That night, 10 terrorists sailed in to Mumbai in a dinghy, armed with AK-47s, grenades and IEDs. An American security official told the U S magazine, The New Yorker, that this was such a deadly operation that even the elite US commando force, the Naval SEALs, would have had a hard time pulling it off.
In the end, it took 60 long hours, 163 innocent lives, including those of 20 security personnel, to evict the terrorists from our city.
Vijay Salaskar, the sharp-shooter who killed many a gangster, was killed by terrorists hiding in the dark before he could even pull out his AK-47.
His colleague at CST, Shashank Shinde, had tried to fire at the terrorists with his revolver. But it was no match for the volley of AK-47 fire that killed him on the platform that he had proudly patrolled for years.
As I write this, I can see the faces of the grieving families of Prakash More, Bapusaheb Durgude, Babasaheb Bhonsle, Arun Chitte, Jayant Patil, Yogesh Patil, Ambadas Pawar, Vijay Khandekar, M Choudhary, Rahul Shinde and Mukesh Jadhav. They showed the courage and bravery and made the sacrifice that every police officer can only envy. I would also like to extend my condolences to the NSG family, which lost valuable members Sandeep Unnikrishnan and Gajendra Singh while freeing my city from this 60-hour-long nightmare.
I thank the people of this city for honouring my fallen colleagues and also those in many cities across the country who have felt our pain and shared it.
As I make visits to the families of the martyrs, which I never imagined I would have to, I find myself at a loss for words to console them. I only come away with a quiet and steely resolve that my colleagues lives will not go in vain. It is a resolve I share with my colleagues everyday. May the force be with them.
(The author is the director-general of Maharashtra Police.)
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