The Bombing of Bombay

Christmas is just around the corner and nearly everyone is buzzing around the city buying presents, decorating their Christmas tree, and getting ready for the big turkey dinner. While we celebrate this joyous holiday season, it's sad to see how India has suddenly unravelled into a firestorm of bloodshed.

I was actually surprised when I turned on CNN and instead of talking about U.S. president-elect Barack Obama or America's economic woes, the broadcast was solely focused on the militant attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay). However, the attacks also dominated every other news channel, giving viewers minute-to-minute reports and updates of what was unfolding in the well known Bollywood capital. To summarise briefly, the attacks lasted 60 hours, killing at least 188 people and injuring more than 200 individuals (BBC News, 2008). Nearly two dozen of those killed were foreigners, including two Canadians, Elizabeth Russell and Dr.Michael Moss.

The terror attacks started last Wednesday, when a group of gunmen began firing on people in the Victoria Terminus railway station. After leaving the station, the gunmen opened fire on people at the Cama and Albess hospital. Around the same time another group of gunmen began firing at a cafe, two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre. In the wake of the attacks, authorities have speculated whether several groups could be implicated for the bloodshed. Firstly, a relatively unknown terrorist group known as the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility. Additionaly several people have argued that the Mumbai attacks were very much "al-Qaeda" style inspired (Gohel, CNN, 2008).

However, one of the captured gunman, Azam Amir Qasab has admitted that he received training in a LET camp. The LET ( Lashkar-e-Taiba) is a Pakistan based militant group which has links to Al-Qaeda (Boutet, C, National Post, 2008). The LET, also known as the Army of the Pure, was founded in the early 90s by Hafiz Saeed and Zafar Iqbal. It represents a militant offshoot of Markaz Daatul Irshad an islamic charity and educational organization (reuters, 2008). The LET is said to have introduced suicide bombing to the Kashmir Conflict (Shah, Globe and Mail, 2008). In 2001 the militant group was banned from India.

Anyways, in light of Mumbai's attacks, one of India's top security officials, Shivraj Patil (the Home Minister) has resigned. The Globe and Mail reported that Mr.Patil took "moral responsibility" for the intelligence failure which led to the attacks (Nolen,S.2008). According to Guardian reporter, Randeep Ramesh, the public is dissatisfied with the way the government has handled the crisis. On Sunday, demonstrators blamed the government for its inability to protect India from such extremists. Earlier this year, several coordinated bomb blasts and explosions rocked different parts of India including Jaipur, Ahmedabad, New Delhi and Assam.

Although India does have a special police force known as the elite Black Cats, they were not able to respond immediately to the recent attacks (sadly, because they had no plane to transport them from Delhi to Mumbai). In addition to the Black Cats, India also has half a million armed state police officers, home guards, and more than 200,000 central reserve police (Timmons, H.,Kumar, H, Herald Tribune). On Sunday, the Herald Tribune also reported that India plans to double the size of the 7,400- National Security Guard, in four more areas across the country. It will be interesting to see if this "beefed up" security plan will improve the government's ability to target terrorists.

Hopefully, India will enter the New Year with just fireworks and not bloodshed.