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India's security system seen as woefully inadequate
Top official resigns; gunman linked to group in Pakistan
AP Photo
Mumbai residents take part in a candlelight ceremony in memory of those lost in the terrorist attack that killed at least 174. More bodies may yet be found.
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Published: December 1, 2008
MUMBAI, India
The only gunman captured after a 60-hour terrorist siege of Mumbai said he belonged to a Pakistani militant group with links to the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, a senior police officer said yesterday.
The gunman was one of 10 who paralyzed the city in an attack that killed at least 174 people and revealed the weakness of India's security apparatus. India's top law-enforcement official resigned, bowing to growing criticism that the attackers appeared better trained, better coordinated and better armed than police.
The statement blaming militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba threatened to escalate tensions between India and Pakistan. However, Indian officials have been cautious about accusing Pakistan's government of complicity.
Lashkar, long seen as a creation of the Pakistani intelligence service to help fight India in disputed Kashmir, was banned in Pakistan in 2002 under pressure from the U.S., a year after Washington and Britain listed it as a terrorist group.
Authorities were still removing bodies from the bullet- and grenade-scarred Taj Mahal hotel, a day after commandos finally ended the violence that began Wednesday night.
As more details of the response to the attack emerged, a picture formed of woefully unprepared security forces. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised to strengthen maritime and air security and look into creating a new federal investigative agency -- even as some analysts doubted that fundamental change was possible.
"These guys could do it next week again in Mumbai and our responses would be exactly the same," said Ajai Sahni, the head of the Institute for Conflict Management who has close ties to India's police and intelligence.
Joint Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria said that the only known surviving gunman, Ajmal Qasab, told police he was trained at a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp in Pakistan. "Lashkar-e-Taiba is behind the terrorist acts in the city," he said.
A spokesman for Pakistani President Asif Zardari, dismissed the claim. "We have demanded evidence of the complicity of any Pakistani group. No evidence has yet been provided," said Farhatullah Babar, the spokesman.
In the first wave of the attacks, two young gunmen armed with assault rifles blithely ignored more than 60 police officers patrolling the city's main train station and sprayed bullets into the crowd.
Bapu Thombre, assistant commissioner with the Mumbai railway police, said that the police were armed mainly with batons or World War I-era rifles and spread out across the station.
"They are not trained to respond to major attacks," he said.
The gunmen continued their rampage outside the station. They eventually ambushed a police van, killed five officers inside -- including the city's counterterrorism chief -- and hijacked the vehicle as two wounded officers lay bleeding in the back seat.
"The way Mumbai police handled the situation, they were not combat ready," said Jimmy Katrak, a security consultant. "You don't need the Indian army to neutralize eight to nine people."
Constable Arun Jadhav, one of the wounded policemen, said that the men laughed when they noticed the dead officers wore bulletproof vests.
With no SWAT team in this city of 18 million, authorities called in the only unit in the country trained to deal with such crises. But the National Security Guards, who largely devote their resources to protecting top officials, are based outside of New Delhi, and it took the commandos nearly 10 hours to reach the scene.
That gave the gunmen time to consolidate control over two luxury hotels and a Jewish center, Sahni said.
As the siege dragged on, local police improperly strapped on ill-fitting bulletproof vests. Few had two-way radios to communicate.
Even the commandos lacked the proper equipment, including night-vision goggles and thermal sensors that would have allowed them to pinpoint the hostages and gunmen inside the buildings, Sahni said.
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