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Horrific event: 26/11 Terrorist Attack On Mumbai

The ninth edition of former J&K governor Jagmohan’s book, My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir, has just been printed. In this updated book, he has added a few extra chapters, including a chapter on the terrorist attack on Mumbai on 26 November 2008.

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The ninth edition of former J&K governor Jagmohan’s book, My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir, has just been printed. In this updated book, he has added a few extra chapters, including a chapter on the terrorist attack on Mumbai on 26 November 2008. We bring an excerpt from the said chapter:

The first decade of the 21st century will be remembered not only as the period when terrorism moved on to a new level of barbarity, but also as the time when it became a strategic threat to democracies… and, indeed, to the established world order
— Peter Clarke, former head of counter-terrorism, New Scotland Yard


The terrorist attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, must be reckoned as one of the most momentous, the most tragic and the most instructive events in the annals of the Indian Republic. Apart from causing huge loss of life and property, it exposed a number of wide chinks in the armoury of Indian polity and machinery of governance. A country, aspiring to be a super-power, stood before the entire world as nothing more than a huge tree with a hollow trunk. The event also brought to surface the inner shallowness of India's intellectual discourse which had shaped the outlook of its social and political elite and caused the emergence of a soft and superficial state.

In this case, 10 young terrorists sailed on a Pakistani steamer from Karachi, hijacked an Indian fishing trawler on the high seas, landed quietly at a point near the Gateway of India, divided themselves in four groups, and moved towards their pre-determined targets.

One group seized the Taj Hotel, the second entered the Leopold Café/Oberoi hotel, the third proceeded to Chabad/Nariman House and the fourth went to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Railway Terminus. Everywhere, they resorted to blood bath with impunity, shooting innocent persons with savagery of a brute. They held the city in terror practically for three days. Before nine of them were killed and one captured, they had butchered 166 persons and left many more wounded. It was a tragedy too deep for tears.

What was no less tragic was the incompetence that was displayed on the occasion. When the terrorist attack occurred, the clarity, cohesion and promptitude that was needed was nowhere to be seen. In sharp contrast to the military precision and speed with which all the four groups of terrorists went about their task, the security apparatus of both the state and central governments looked disjointed. It took quite some time for this apparatus to adjust itself for effective action.

The other components of the social structure did not cover themselves with glory either. For example, almost all the television channels vied with one another in showing live the operation conducted by the National Security Guard against the terrorists at the Taj Hotel. They did not care to consider that their coverage could be used by the Pakistani handlers of the terrorists to convey fresh instructions and cause heavier loss of innocent lives.

All this happened despite the fact that India had seen a number of terrorist attacks in its metropolitan cities. In 2008 alone, it saw such bloody and brutal attacks as eight serial blasts in Jaipur on May 13, which took away 80 lives; 17 serial blasts in Ahmedabad on July 26, which left 53 dead; and eight serial blasts in Delhi, which killed 26 people. Unfortunately, India remained incorrigible, tempting its adversaries to take advantage of its soft underbelly again and again.

In the aftermath of the attack, there was a furious denunciation of the central and state government agencies by the social and intellectual elite whose mental attitude towards terrorism underwent a marked change. They experienced, first hand, the pain, agony and horror that the terrorist act caused. In the early phase of terrorism, when Kashmiri Pandits and other innocent persons were being killed like caged pigeons in the valley, these very elite, by and large, had remained unsympathetic and did not come forward in any meaningful way to pressurise the authorities to end the misery of the victims. On the other hand, some of them rationalised terrorism, talked of alienation of Kashmiri youth, went to the extent of ignoring documented facts and other hard evidence and even blamed the Governor's administration for having induced the exodus of the Pandits. The stark reality dawned upon them only when the terrorists began to spread their tentacles and shoot people in cold blood in seven-star hotels and restaurants.

Since the mid-1980's, when the Indian diplomat, Ravinder Mhatre, was murdered by Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front at Birmingham and a huge subversive drama was staged at Srinagar during the West Indies-India cricket match, I had been underscoring the sinister nature of the Pakistani plan under which terrorism was being injected in Kashmir by arousing religious frenzy and by diverting and deploying sophisticated weapons which the CIA was supplying to the ISI, ostensibly for use in Afghanistan War. But no one listened. In fact, those like me who wanted to incise away the cancerous cells when they were in process of growing, were pilloried and shown the door. Now that the cells have proliferated and started attacking the vital organs of the body-politics of India, a very heavy cost and a long time would be required to bring back this body to health. Already about 50,000 lives and several thousands crore of public funds have been lost.
After the tragedy of truly historic proportion, Government of India should have appointed a high-level independent commission of inquiry, on the lines of United States 9/11 Commission, to investigate the background and all other facts and circumstances pertaining to the case, and recommend measures to prevent such attacks in future. But it did not do so. Expediency and narrow consideration of politics seemed to have weighed with it. Nevertheless, some lessons seem to have been learnt. A National Investigative Agency has been set up and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act has been amended. The Coastal Security Scheme has been provided with additional funds to the tune of Rs1100 crore. A National Counter-Terrorism Centre is also in the offing. Undoubtedly, all these measures would give stronger teeth to the administrative machinery. But who would provide the will to bite? India so far has shown unpardonable hesitancy in acting firmly even in the face of terrible pounding it has received from the agents of the ISI.

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