Taj Mahal leads India's recovery

By M H Ahssan

Brutally damaged but determined, shell-shocked but standing firm, the Taj Mahal Palace hotel has become a rallying symbol for Mumbai's recovery from the multiple terrorist strikes last week which killed 183 people and injured over 325.

The Taj, Mumbai, a hospitality industry icon in India, was seized by gunmen on the night of November 26, along with its competitor, the Oberoi-Trident and a Jewish community center, all within a three-kilometer radius in south Mumbai, the city's leading office, residential and tourist area.

After suffering India's worst terrorist attack, Mumbai quickly lived up to its reputation of resilience. On Monday, the bustling Colaba area near the Taj Mahal burst into noisy life in mid-morning sunshine, with tourist shops and restaurants open and business as usual. Chatting and smiling Western tourists casually strolled around Colaba, with no fear in anyone's eyes.

Apart from a security cordon around the Taj Mahal, the bylanes of Colaba offered no traces of the area being the epicenter of bloodied mayhem 48 hours ago as army and navy commandos fought to flush out well-armed, well-trained terrorists holding hundreds of hostages from over 10 countries.

Then, in what now seems a barely believable nightmare, nearly 60 hours of intermittent gunfire and explosions stopped in south Mumbai around 7.30 am on Saturday, as the body of the last of the terrorists tumbled out of a first floor window in the Taj Mahal that alleged Lakshar-e-Taiba (LET) operatives seized. A quasi-commando sea raid from another country to massacre unarmed civilians in the city had ended, and despite a last salvo of loud explosions, the hotel was still standing. The LET is a banned militant group based in Pakistan that has traditionally focussed on Kashmir, the disputed territory between India and Pakistan.

If the Taj Mahal in Agra is a monument to love, the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai became a symbol of defiance during the unprecedented ordeal.

The symbol of grief in the city is two-year old Moshe, the surviving orphan of New York origin Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, whom the terrorists killed on the first night of the attack.

Baby Moshe, clutching a red ball and crying out for his parents, left for Israel on Monday with his grand parents and his Indian nanny Sandra Samuel, who saved him by escaping from the Jewish community building in Colaba that the terrorists had seized.

On a Saturday night of candlelight processions, including near the Taj, in which many expatriates from the US and European countries participated, one of them said, "The terrorists want me to be afraid, and I am not afraid. I am not leaving Mumbai."

For three nights and two days I watched in dismay as the Taj Mahal, one of the most familiar landmarks of the city, struggled under fire, smoke, grenade explosions and machine-gun bullets. Like other Mumbai residents with memories of life in the century-old hotel, it seemed like Mumbai itself was fighting for survival.

Each explosion seemed to confirm terrorist plans to blow up the Taj, similar to the Marriott, Islamabad. But like Mumbai, the Taj survived, and candlelights shone in serene triumph on the silent paved road between the Gateway of India and the hotel by the Arabian Sea.

Early December days are usually when the brown-uniformed housekeeping staff of the Taj hoist the hotel Christmas tree and lighted decorations in the marble lobby. But Santa won't be appearing in the hotel for maybe another year, as the Taj called its 1,500 employees for a meeting on December 1 to decide a future course of action.

Hours after security forces handed back the hotel to management on December 1, the Taj issued a statement at 1.00 pm on Monday saying the heritage building had been sealed, until risk assessment teams studied damage after the terrorist attack.

Also on Monday, a six-member Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team that flew in from the United States spent two hours sifting through wrecked suites, blackened walls and bullet-ridden corridors of a hotel whose guest list is a who's who of the world, including kings, queens, presidents, the Beatles and Elvis Presley. The Americans were joined by a group from Britain's Scotland Yard.

India's Foreign Intelligence agency is reported to have said it received information in September that Pakistan-based terrorists planned attacks in Mumbai.

In Chicago, US president-elect Barack Obama said that militants in South Asia posed the biggest threat to the US, and emphasized his determination to fight terrorism. "We cannot tolerate a world where innocents are killed by extremists based on twisted ideologies," Obama told the media after announcing his national security team. "We're going to bring the full force of our power - not only military but also diplomatic, economic and political - to deal with those threats. Not only to keep America safe but also to ensure that peace and prosperity continue around the world."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to arrive in New Delhi on Wednesday for talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, to coordinate an India-US response following the terrorist attacks in which six US citizens were killed.

Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram was appointed the new home minister after his predecessor, Shivraj Patil, resigned on Sunday, accepting "moral responsibility" for the attacks.

In his first press conference in his new position, Chidambaram on Monday promised to take necessary action, and said the terrorist attacks were a "threat to the very idea of India, a threat to the soul of India that we know, that is secular, plural, open and tolerant. But I have no doubt that ultimately the idea of India will triumph."

But, perhaps for the first time ever, the emerging involvement of Pakistan in a horrific terrorist attack has so far been a side issue in India. Instead, public anger raged against Indian political leaders.

The repercussions were felt at an all-party meeting at Manmohan's residence in New Delhi on Sunday night. Patil and his counterpart in Mumbai, R K Patil, were the first heads to roll in what appears will be series of high-level resignations to appease furious citizens demanding accountability.

From street-level protests in Mumbai to news channel debates, a cross-section of Indian society expressed outrage at political leaders mouthing inanities after every terrorist attack.

"We want to honor those who have lost their lives and protest against politicians who did nothing," a Mumbai resident said. SMS messages went around Mumbai asking people to wear white clothes on Monday as a mark of respect to the dead.

Mumbai leaders turning up at funerals for terrorist victims were booed. When Kerala state chief minister V S Achuthanandan offered condolences to the father of National Security Guards commando Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, whom terrorists killed in the Taj Mahal while he was rescuing an injured comrade, the grieving father refused to meet the chief minister and told him to get out of the house.

Mumbai was stunned by the brutality of the attack, yet there seemed to be more shock and sadness than anger, that "boys" could unleash such a cold-blooded massacre of unarmed men, women and children. Hostages released from the Oberoi and Taj Mahal hotels narrated horrific stories of the terrorists, all under 30, smiling as they cold-bloodedly gunned down hotel guests.

The Indian media have for the past three days published updates of apparent confessions of the only surviving terrorist who was arrested by police on November 26. They intercepted Ajmal Amir Kasab in a hijacked Skoda car as he and his accomplice Ismail were heading to assault Malabar Hill, an elite residential area, to kill high-profile victims. Ismail was killed in the shootout, Kasab survived with a hand injury.

Produced in a Mumbai metropolitan magistrate court that sent him to police custody until December 11, Kasab has reportedly confessed to being part of a 25-member LET team extensively trained for a year in LET camps at Mansera and Muzzarafabad in Punjab province of Pakistan.

HNN reported on Monday that a small al-Qaeda attack intended for Kashmir changed into the major LET assault in Mumbai. The 25-member LET team was shortlisted to 10 handpicked murderers. Kasab told interrogators the attack was planned six months ago and they were asked to kill 5,000 people, particularly targeting Israelis and white American and British citizens. The Mumbai police said Kasab expressed no remorse or regret for what he had done.

Kasab is said to have told investigators the militants hijacked an Indian vessel to take them into Mumbai and the men, aged 18-28, then went ashore in a dinghy before splitting up to attack different targets.

The Indian government and media have refrained from strongly condemning Pakistan. In a measured statement, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said preliminary investigations pointed to "certain elements" in Pakistan being behind the terrorist attack.

India's newspapers and TV channels have also been regularly carrying protestations of innocence from the Pakistani army and political leadership, as well as reporting messages from the people of Pakistan. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said on Monday the gunmen were "non-state actors", and warned against letting their actions lead to greater regional enmity.

Leaders of the Muslim community in Mumbai have also acted against terrorists who misrepresent Islam. The Muslim Council said the Marine Lines Bada Qabrastan (cemetery) in Mumbai will refuse to bury the bodies of the nine terrorists killed by security forces. The council told reporters it was sending a message to all cemeteries in India that none of the bodies of terrorists who attacked India should be buried on Indian soil.

Similar calls for national solidarity and unity came from Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group that owns the Taj Mahal. "We must show that we cannot be disabled, divided or destroyed, but that such heinous acts will only make us stronger," he said in a statement.

Ratan Tata, Mumbai and India do not have to look far for inspiration. On November 29, Karimbir Kang, the general manager of the Taj Mahal, received news that the bodies of his wife Niti (40) and their sons Uday (14) and Samar (5) had been recovered from a locked bathroom in their residence in the hotel. They had been hiding from the terrorists, and possibly died of suffocation from a fire raging from explosions of grenades thrown by terrorists on the first night of the attack on November 26.

Kang did not waste time in seething with anger, or words of vengeance and self-pity. Instead, he contacted his chief, Ratan Tata, and consoled him: "Sir, we're going to beat this. We're going to build the Taj back into what it was. We're standing with you. We will not let this event take us down."