UPDATES: As of 4pm India time (+5:30 hrs GMT)
- Large quantity of RDX found at two locations.
- 148 hostages released after Commando raid on Trident Oberoi Hotels.
- Fighting continuing between remaining terrorists and Military.
- Jewish Hostages at Nariman Point still incarcerated.
By Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Thirty four hours after terrorists struck the heart of south Mumbai, national security guards have almost flushed out the terrorists from the Taj hotel. Armed men and helicopters continue in their quest to drive out the terrorists holed up in a Jewish center the Nariman House and the Oberoi-Trident. While fierce gun battle still persists, 125 have been declared dead, including 14 policemen and six foreigners, 327 are injured.
While the terrorists are most probably out to make an international statement by targeting tourist hot spots, the mass number of Indian casualties too cannot be discounted. Of the 125 already declared dead 119 were Indian nationals, a majority of the injured are also Indians, casual by-standers who were killed in random firing at public places that are usually very crowded.
Sources say a majority of the Indian’s who were killed were innocent people going home after a day’s work from the center of the city from Mumbai’s biggest railway station to their homes in the suburbs, or patients in hospitals and their relatives and staff at the targeted hotels. What is disheartening is that the Indians that are believed to have been killed hail not from the affluent part of south mumbai where they worked but probably from smaller towns and cities outside the city. Being a service centered city, Mumbai is known as the melting pot of Mumbai where millions come to make it big. Many of them end up working as waiters in hotels, nurses in hospitals and everyday clergymen.
Mumbai, the current scene of bloody machine gun battles with grenades being thrown at civilians, firefighters and police, is India’s most cosmopolitan city. Facing the Arabian Sea, it is also it’s most Middle Eastern flavored, and the city is dotted with Parsi and Zoroastrian buildings and designs, all jostling for grandeur amongst the colonial architecture brought in by the British. For centuries, people of all faiths have traded in Mumbai. The Taj Hotel, now aflame, pock marked with bullet holes and rocked by explosions, was built by the founder of the Tata Group and is still operated by them. You were just as likely to see visiting Arabic businessmen in dish-dash-ah and headscarves in the lobby, milling around with American executives, visiting Chinese traders, and the wealthy India elite as anyone else. Yet now that same lobby has become a killing field in the name of Islam, if new reports coming to light confirm that the terrorists sped in by boat from Karachi, in southern Pakistan.
The terrorist attacks in Mumbai have taken place directly in the heart of the commercial area of the city, where all the prestigious business locations, office buildings and some of the most expensive hotels are based. The area, known as Colaba, stretches down the coast and Marine Drive, where attacks took place on the Leopolds Café restaurant, several petrol stations and the Oberoi Trident Hotel at Nariman Point, up to the Gateway of India, just across from the Taj, and further down Horniman Circle and Mahapalika Marg, where Mumbai’s main train station (Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus) is located just close to the University of Mumbai. India’s most respected barristers chambers, as well as banks and other commercial businesses are all based in this area.
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