terrorists attack on india

India’s home minister resigns over Mumbai attacks
By Joe Leahy and James Fontanella-Khan in Mumbai

Published: November 28 2008 19:10 | Last updated: November 30 2008 12:37

India’s home minister Shivraj Patil became the first high-profile political casualty of the terrorist attacks on Mumbai, offering his resignation on Sunday to take responsibility for the violence, which claimed at least 192 lives.

The move came amid growing recriminations against India’s government for its alleged laxity in tackling a wave of terrorist bombings that have swept most of the major cities, including the capital New Delhi and India’s Silicon Valley, Bangalore.

EDITOR’S CHOICE
In depth: India attacks - Nov-27Assault on India’s fabled city of dreams - Nov-28Mumbai’s fishing district comes to a standstill - Nov-28Congress may pay political reckoning - Nov-28Slideshow: FT reporters chronicle the three-day terrorist attack on the streets of Mumbai - Nov-27Pakistan spy chief to aid terror probe - Nov-28“As the political head of the Home Ministry, he just thought it appropriate to take responsibility,” Manish Tiwari, Congress party spokesman, told the Financial Times.

Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s finance minister, will take over as home minister while officials told Reuters that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would temporarily take over the finance portfolio.

The Mumbai attacks, the worst in a country with a long history of terrorist violence, ended on Saturday when Commandos killed the last Islamist gunmen holed up at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal hotel after a three-day rampage.

As the violence finally died down, government officials revealed that they believed the attackers were all foreigners.

Bhushan Gagrani, the spokesman for the government of the state of Maharashtra of which Mumbai is the capital, told the Financial Times: “None of the 10 involved in the terrorist attack were Indians.”

The revelations are increasing speculation that elements in Pakistan were responsible for the violence and fueling rising tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad.

Mr Gagrani said a sole terrorist, who is state police custody, “is apparently not an Indian”. He identified the terrorist only as a “Mr Khan and who 25-28 years old”.

Prime Minister Singh this week warned of consequences if neighbouring countries were found to be harbouring elements responsible for the attacks on their soil.

India and Pakistan, which both claim the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir, have fought three wars and came close to a fourth in 2002 after terrorists attacked the New Delhi parliament. India linked the terrorists to Pakistan and mobilised over a million troops on the border.

The end of the siege of the Taj on Saturday also came as it emerged that the slowness of the police and security forces to respond to the terrorist strike contributed to the death toll from the disaster.

The revelations about the lack of preparedness of the India armed forces are particularly inflammatory in a city that only two years ago was the scene of what was previously the country’s worst terrorist attack.

PRS Oberoi, the chairman of the Oberoi Group and one of India’s most prominent businessmen, said the majority of people killed in the terrorist attack at his luxury hotel complex, the Trident-Oberoi, were shot during the first 30 minutes, the time it took the police to arrive on the scene.

The siege of the Taj hotel, one of three sites in the business and tourist district of India’s financial capital in which the terrorists took hostages, ended at about midday on Saturday the same way it began two and a half days earlier – in a hail of gunfire and explosions.

With the last of the hostages believed to have been removed from the building, two waves of elite anti-terrorist squads stormed the Taj just after dawn on Saturday and engaged the terrorists in the area of hotel ballroom, FT reporters saw.

In the fiercest exchange of fire heard in the entire attack, the terrorists seemed to repel the soldiers and set the area on fire, forcing the security forces to redeploy outside the building and bring in the fire brigade.

By mid-morning, with the fires extinguished, the special forces launched a second attack against the terrorists, finally killing them off as smoke issued from the historic building.

The military, in a press conference after the first attack, said the terrorists occupying the hotel numbered more than just the two or three that had previously been estimated.

Nine of the attackers were killed and a tenth caught alive. Mumbai police told the FT at least 183 people had been killed not including terrorists. At least 22 foreigners were among the dead, and 294 wounded, the death toll rising as bodies were collected from the Taj and the nearby Trident-Oberoi, whose siege ended on Friday.

Two Australians, a father and daughter from the US, a German, an Italian and Canadians were among the foreign victims, according to Dow Jones. Those killed included two commandoes and a large number police. Indian TV showed the funerals of security forces on Saturday with media reports beginning to strike a nationalist tone as suspicion grows that elements from Pakistan were behind the attacks.

Also on Friday, a day-long effort to regain control of a Jewish community centre, Nariman House, ended with the news that at least five hostages, all believed to be Israeli and including a young rabbi and his wife, had been killed. Later a series of explosions was heard at the centre as security forces set off booby traps laid by the gunmen before they were killed.

At a press conference on Saturday, Mr Oberoi praised the courage and heroism of all law enforcement agencies but implied that more lives could have been saved if they had arrived earlier.

A total of 32 people plus 2 terrorists were killed at the Trident-Oberoi, said Mr Oberoi in a press conference at the Intercontinental hotel, which is located a few blocks away from where the terrorist attack took place.

"Tragically, 4 resident guests, 18 visitors who were dining in our restaurants and 10 of our staff members lost their lives," said Mr Oberoi. "The loss of lives was mostly at the lobby level in the first 30 minutes ... before the police arrived."

Raymond Bickson, the chief executive officer of the Indian Hotels Group, which owns the Taj, said that media reports that the terrorists may have worked at the hotel prior to the attacks were not confirmed.

“We have no indications or information from the investigating authorities that any of the hotel employees or contractual staff has been involved in this terrorist attack,” said Mr Bickson.

Ashok Mehta, a retired army commander, said the casualty count in Mumbai could have been halved if the elite National Security Guard had arrived earlier from its Delhi base. A little-known group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attacks.

A militant claiming to be one of those holding the Jewish family earlier rang an Indian television channel to offer talks on the release of the hostages while complaining about India’s actions in Kashmir. India and Pakistan are at odds over the disputed territory.

Indian media reported that Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra, had said that two UK-born Pakistanis were among gunmen seized by Indian commandos.

But this was later denied by the state government. UK home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said that the authorities there had no knowledge of any British links with the attacks.

Elite Indian commandos spoke of fierce battles through the maze of corridors and 565 rooms of the 105-year-old Taj Mahal hotel in which the terrorists had a better knowledge of the building’s layout than security forces.

Earlier on Friday, 143 people were freed from the Oberoi Hotel after Indian forces regained control. Police confirmed at least 30 guests and two others had died in the attack. Analysts said the terrorists had achieved a “significant success” by managing to keep the Indian security forces at bay for so long.

Pranab Mukherjee, India’s external affairs minister, said a preliminary probe pointed towards Pakistani involvement, in spite of assertions by President Asif Ali Zardari that land under Pakistani control would not be allowed to launch attacks on India. Pakistan denied involvement.

Additional reporting Varun Sood in Mumbai
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

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