Ten years after 26/11, can Mumbai be attacked again?
India has not learnt enough lessons. Pakistan has not paid enough of a price.
It was shortly after 10.30 pm when we first heard the news — there had been a shoot-out in Colaba in South Mumbai.
Within minutes, it was clear this was no gang war. The Taj Mahal hotel in Colaba was under siege. Gunfire had been heard at Mumbai’s largest railway station, then called CST. Reports of gunmen in the Oberoi hotel filtered in. A shoot-out near Cama & Albless hospital, not far from police headquarters, was reported. The Jewish Nariman Chabad House had been attacked.
Mumbai was under a coordinated terror attack on the night of November 26, 2008.
Ten years later, what lessons have we learnt from the terror attack, coordinated from Rawalpindi with Pakistan’s rogue ISI directing operations to the 10 terrorists who came from Karachi to Mumbai by boat and inflatable rafts?
Not enough.
On the night of November 26, as soon as they received news of the terror attack, 250 elite National Security Guard (NSG) commandos were ready to fly to Mumbai. They were stationed at Manesar, Haryana. However, instead of reaching Mumbai by 2.00 am, the commandos arrived in the city only at 5.00 am. Their IL-76 aircraft wasn’t available at short notice — a grave security breach.
Immediately after the 60-hour-long terror attack, spread over four days, had been neutralised and nine of the 10 Pakistani terrorists killed (the 10th, Ajmal Kasab, was caught, jailed, tried and hanged four years later in 2012), the Manmohan Singh government toyed with the idea of retaliating with a military strike on Pakistani territory. In the end, it did nothing.
If a punitive strike had been launched on Pakistan immediately after the terror attack was contained, world opinion would have strongly backed India. Several foreigners, including American citizens, were killed in the attack on the Taj and Oberoi hotels.
But the UPA1 government, counselled by national security advisor MK Narayanan and army chief Deepak Kapoor (who returned from South Africa on November 28), stepped back from a confrontation with Pakistan.
The decision would have serious consequences on India’s fight against terror over the next decade.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s faltering response was to replace Home Minister Shivraj Patil with Finance Minister P Chidambaram on December 1.
Chidambaram had held the finance portfolio from 2004. Now, four years later as the new home minister, he set about revamping India’s anti-terror infrastructure.
New NSG hubs were created around the country to ensure rapid movement of commandos during a terror attack. The Mumbai NSG hub became operational in June 2009. Hubs in Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai were established soon after.
Today, nine years later, NSG commandos are better equipped to handle terror attacks like 26/11 — but both infrastructure and weaponry remain a concern. For example, only a basic firing range is in place in the Mumbai hub, which now has 500 NSG commandos.
They still lack the state-of-the-art facilities they were promised. Both the UPA and NDA governments must bear responsibility for this lacuna.
The attack on Mumbai, which killed 166 people and injured hundreds more, came from the sea. With its long coastline, the country’s financial capital remains vulnerable. As Sudhi Ranjan Sen reported in Hindustan Times: “Then, as it is now, the Achilles’ heel of India’s coastal security remains small fishing boats, especially those under 20 metres long. Of the 280,000 odd-fishing boats registered across states in India, 220,000 fall in this category.
“The 10 Pakistan-based terrorists involved in the 26/11 attacks hijacked Kuber, a small fishing trawler in the high sea, killed the captain, and sailed into Mumbai unchallenged. They then used inflatable rafts to land. Since then, all merchant and fishing vessels that are above 20 metres long are fitted with an ‘Automatic Identification System’ (AIS), a Global Positioning System-enabled friend or foe identification (mechanism)…”
Where were you when it happened?
There are some life-changing events that stay etched in memory and prompt the question: where were you when it happened? The assassination of US President John F Kennedy, the assassinations of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, the 9/11 terror attack on the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centre — and now, 26/11, fall into this category.
The morning after the 26/11 terror strike, on November 27, 2008, we sped along empty Mumbai roads, seeking access to the multi-location attacks. On day three of the attack, November 28, television camera crews were banked a few hundred metres from the Taj, then still under siege as NSG commandos went floor to floor, room to room, searching for the four Pakistani terrorists who had shot their way into the hotel 48 hours earlier. By the next day, November 29, nine of the ten terrorists in all locations — Taj, Oberoi and Chabad House — had been killed.
Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive, would say four years later to Ramesh Mahale, chief investigator in the case, as he was led from Arthur Road jail in Mumbai to Yerawada jail in Pune where he was to be hanged on November 21, 2012: “Aap jeet gaye, main har gaya (you won, I lost).”
It was not the end though that India sought.
Pakistan-sponsored terrorism continued: Gurdaspur, Uri, Pathankot and countless targets across Jammu and Kashmir.
By 2012, Chidambaram had moved back from home to finance. Many of his initiatives, like the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), came to nothing.
Lessons learned? Not many, certainly not enough.
India remains a soft target. The trial to bring the Pakistani state handlers of Kasab and nine other terrorists to justice has long descended into farce in Pakistan’s subverted courts. Hafiz Saeed, patron of the Punjab-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), is a charitable and religious icon in Pakistan.
America’s bid to try the ISI’s General Ahmed Shuja Pasha for the killing of American citizens in the 26/11 terror attack ran aground in US courts on the basis of sovereign immunity.
The principal handler of the 26/11 attackers and top LeT commander working directly under the ISI, Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, faced a deliberately sabotaged trial. The Pakistani prosecutors suppressed evidence and Lakhvi is out on bail, his trial for all practical purposes over.
With Pakistan descending into a vortex of sectarian violence, the solution to cauterising crossborder terrorism lies within India. In 1997, then Prime Minister IK Gujral eroded India’s covert operational capabilities. The Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh and Modi governments have not reversed that erosion.
As a result, India remains a vulnerable target, with few options to make Pakistan pay a price for its terrorism.
Covert operations were one option in the 1990s. They no longer are. They must be rebuilt, along with all the other tactical weapons India now has, to inflict severe costs on Pakistan.
The martyrs of 26/11 deserve that.