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MUMBAI
Within the first hour of the firing at Café Leopold on 26/11, a small group of armed policemen who pursued the four attackers inside the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers Hotel were presented with 12 golden minutes to restrict, if not eliminate, them as they were holed up inside a room for that duration. Another, much bigger, opportunity came after midnight when the four terrorists took refuge in a second room for nearly two hours and the Mumbai Police had about 120 armed men to take them on.CCTV footage accessed by The Indian Express shows that on both occasions, the police squandered the chance waiting for commandos to arrive from New Delhi and launch a counter-offensive — a full 12 hours after the attacks began.
The first group of policemen to reach the scene of any of the targets attacked that night was a team of six policemen led by DCP (Zone 1) Vishwas Nangre-Patil. The Indian Express photographer Vasant Prabhu tailed that team as it pursued Lashkar militants Abu Shoaib and Abu Umer, who had shot and killed diners at Café Leopold. This team entered the sprawling hotel complex from the same North Court gate at the rear as the terrorists.
They reached the heritage wing and sought to hunt the terrorists through the maze of corridors inside, intermittently exchanging fire, challenging AK-47s with their pistols. Unable to make any impact, Nangre-Patil and his team moved to the security control room of the hotel on the second floor, where Taj securitymen were monitoring the unfolding horror through CCTV camera pictures from across the hotel.
Over the next four hours, this nondescript room would witness the shocking unpreparedness of the Mumbai Police to take on the attackers whose number had doubled as Shoaib and Umer teamed up with Abdul Rehman Bada and Abu Ali, who entered the hotel from the main entrance five minutes before them at 9.38 pm.
CCTV footage from inside the hotel shows the four terrorists gathering first inside Room 551 of the heritage wing for 12 minutes and later in Room 632 for nearly two hours with minor interruptions in between.
On both occasions, Nangre-Patil and his team got this information instantly from the hotel’s security staff. The first chance to restrict or engage the Lashkar men presented itself within an hour after they had raided the hotel, the second came about two hours later as the sequence of events recorded by the hotel’s CCTV cameras show:
22:27: All four terrorists enter Room 551 and stay inside until 22:39 when two of them emerge from the room. They enter an adjoining room and bring out a hostage.
22:48: The duo take the hostage back into Room 551 and stay inside until 22:54.
22:54: One terrorist comes out of Room 551 to take a look in the corridor for a minute and returns to the room.
come out of the room and go back into it individually before leaving it together at 23:13 and spreading out. As soon as they noticed the movements of the attackers at 22:27, the Taj security staff asked Nangre-Patil to seize the opportunity and block the terrorists in that room. Nangre-Patil is learnt to have said that special forces were on their way and would take over the task.
Then came the second opportunity.
00:38: The four terrorists trooped into Room 632 and stayed inside.
00:53: One of them left and returned shortly.
01:28: Another left the room and returned after a few minutes.
02.34: All four left the room and fanned out, igniting fires on the sixth floor.
Nangre-Patil, who continued to remain in the hotel security control room, was once again informed by security staff as soon as the four terrorists entered Room 632. This time, the DCP informed senior officers over the wireless and also sought more policemen. But according to Control Room transcripts of the wireless conversations heard by The Indian Express, Mumbai Police Commissioner Hassan Gafoor told Nangre-Patil to wait for backup.
When contacted, Gafoor said: “There was no question of asking anyone to flee or not engage the terrorists. Nangre-Patil displayed exemplary courage. He told me, ‘Sir, I will do or die’, and I told him not to contemplate such things as the Army was on its way. Two constables with him had died, and he was lucky to have survived.”
Despite repeated attempts, Nangre-Patil was unavailable for comment.
The backup, in the form of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) Quick Reaction Team (QRT), “striking mobiles” and “assault mobiles,” were already at the hotel. In fact, three “striking mobiles” with 18 armed policemen each, three “assault mobiles” with five men each, six police station mobiles with a minimum of four men each, as well as a Quick Response Team armed with AK-47 assault rifles — a total of about 120 armed policemen — were at the ground floor of the hotel, awaiting orders to proceed to higher floors.
The operations to storm the hotel began in earnest much after the Marine Commandos arrived at 2:10 am but even they could not go beyond the ground floor. They were followed by the NSG at around 8 am and operations were launched only at 9.30 am.
While 20 people were killed in the first 30 minutes of the attack, another 12, including NSG Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, died later. The wife and two sons of the hotel’s general manager, Karambir Kang, were also killed in the fires the terrorists set after they left Room 632 at 2.34 am.
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My understanding here is that we are not well equipped at state level public protection. We should have a proper code of conduct, behaviour analysis and approach to common citizen of India. We always come across rude, arrogant behaviour that British used against us to divide our country, as the code of conduct which is stupid. It's time for us to be India not divided India with caste, creed, religion, money etc. The root is our narrow minded approach to life, ex: admission to school, job etc depends on our religion. I am so irritated with this that I have left religion blank with my special request on TC when out of college. Let's become more balanced in approach with logic and proper behaviour and treat our citizen with love, affection and responsibility. Jai Hind!
It is easy to blame someone and move on. Most of the comment are in this line. That is shocking and making the police a cheap joke. Remember they lost some of the finest officers in this operation. The question to ask Congress, BJP, Shiv Sena, Left and others is why the political class has not acted properly and with responsibility after such major incidents. Why have they not brought police reforms and made police independent. With police made to serve the interests of the powerful ministers in the government and party they will never do a good job. Look at Gujarat how the BJP ministers used top police officers are executioners for their menial jobs - all for money. So lets us all ask for reform and let us write in every form , every day , every minute until this is acted upon by all parties responsibly. let us also boycott all parties until they start acting within a agreed time bound manner.
Please get your facts right before talking about anything with regards to say Gujarat. What comes out in the media is not always the entire truth. You sould be aware of that what with the Radia tapes coming out.
I Proud On Mumbai Police Speciely Vishwas Nangre Patil ( Bhauda) Sir Regards Nilesh Vinkar
Sir, Mumbai police must have missed the motor cycle borne commandos trained by me during 1999 when Ronie Mendocea was the Commissioner Police. I trained seven batches of around 80 each who were trained to fight such situations but were disbanded due to rivelrly in senior police ranks. These commandos were taught to work in three buddy pairs in a squad of 3/4 pairs each commanded by a Havildar or a Sub Inspector. Trained in minor tactics to deal exactly the situations like 26/11, if they were present with the leadership at junior squad commander level, they would have finished the operation within six hours and before the terrorists had time to consolidate. As brought out in your papers, two crucial opprtunities were missed when terrorists were holed up in rooms. That was the time when the commandos would have gone for the kill. Officers responnible to disband that force need to be held accountable at least now as to why they disbanded this force.
you are absolutely right.Politics within the police is rampant and this has led to non professionalism in the quality of our police.Bombay police are known all over only for torturing and harrasing innocents.Lets accept that Bombay police did a shoddy job and no point glorifying them as they have embarrassed us on numerous ocassions.If they were all that good, there would not be bomb blasts repeatedly every year.
What has not been repoted by the Portal is the roleof Burkha Dutt neotiating a free passage for the rerrorits without having authority and planting a story of revenge on the part of terrorists on account Gujrat Riots and Kashmir Problem with which she and her portal has been involved to appease Muslim Fanatics in the Country.
the coordination by the police to get help from otheragencies was shocking. didnt the mumbai police know that there is an infantry battalion at the army garrison nearby at colaba and the navy garison at the docks which had the naval commandos.Why they couldnt get the assistance at the earliest instead of waiting for help from all the way from Delhi.Quickest response is the surest way to destroy the terrorists and that did not happen due to mental lethargyand inefficiency of the police and the bureaucracy.
Indian express deserves appreciation for doing this research work but only a few people in india realize that we are overburdening the police day by day. creation of ATS and commondo force within the state police has become a fashion. some vested interest are also there because this provide with lots of unaccounted secret fun that remains unaudited, BUT IN LAST ONE CENTURY WE HAVE NOT MADE OUR POLICE CAPABLE OF DOING THE BASIC POLICING ACTS LIKE CONTROLLING GRASSROOT LEVEL CRIMES SUCH AS RAPE,DECOITY,TRAFFIC VIOLATIONS ETC. even then our policy makers want the police to fight the terrorist also,added responsibilty for which police neither created nor prepared. symultaniously we are making bad use of our PARAMILITARY FORCES like CRPF by forcing them to do normal policing duties intead of fighting exclusivey the menace of terrorism/naxalism. we must go back to the table and instead of overburdening the police empower the CRPF to handle the anti terror mechanism with responsibilty fixed.
Indian police is alternate to Mafia. No common man dares to go to police station to report any crime or violence he has suffered. If low wages are an excuse for police to indulge in corruption, then there are 800 million Indians who are earning less than 15 rupees per day. By these standards Indian police are well paid. If ever one uses low wages as excuse, then India will have 1 billion criminals.
AND OF COURSE A CLEAN CHIT WAS GIVEN TO THE GOVT. I AM CERTAIN THAT THE CLEAN CHIT WAS GIVEN WITHOUT ASKING ANY QUESTIONS AND CONSIDERING ANY ANSWERS THAT WERE RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE INVETIGATIVE PANEL! SHAME MAHARASHTRA, SHAME GOVT. OF INDIA. FOR ALLOWING SUCH THINGS TO GO ON.
Kudos to your investigative reporting. It is highlyshameful that the chief secretary of the state waited for official communication from the police and wasted almost 1 hour before contacting thecentre. He cme to know about the strike at 9.30 p.m. through TV channel and he took up with the centre only at 10.20p.m. and then only he contacted New Delhi. Such actions or lapses are being patronised by granting extension of their services.
When the question you have raised in your paper was raised by the opposition leader our Home Minister has the audacity of pointing earlier occasions of attack rather than looking into the failures of his own security men and assuring prevention of recurrence in the present case. If this callous attitude on the part of our Home Minister is not arrested I am sure there would not be any meaningful discussion in parliament. He should be asked to bemore careful in answering the opposition. PM should mend him to country"s needs.
Great piece of journalism, kudos to Indianexpress
I have a major concern about the way things were handled;1> TV channels should not have been within the 500 m radius of the scene.2> Those that were rescued; it did not look like there was any debriefing; They were facing questions from the media within 10-15 mins of rescue3> I don't know why response like the Moscow attacks were done; this would have yielded us more than one terrorists alive.4> Common sense tells me, if those folks are holed up in one room; just make sure they don't get out of that place;We need to have proper priorities in place for VIP security; Secure the borders and not individual capsule of VIP;
IPS led police is only designed to keep colonialsubjects under control by "Danda". Their ethos are not meant for internal security but law and order. It is high time Internal security is handled by a different ministry. The CPOs must be militarised upto top level. Or just keep bungling the IPS way at the cost of millions of lives.
Just shows what a bunch incompetent ninicompoops the Mumbai Police has become. You can even see this from the physical shape of the police personnel, A majority of them are over weight and have no knowledge of the laws of the land that they are supposed to protect. I am certain if they (or any policeforce)were given a test in the matters of law the bulk of the personnel will fail miserably. People join the police force, not to uphold the law, but to gain wealth illegally. They are not there to protect the citizens of the country but they work in connivance with the criminals to extort money from the citizens. I feel their IQ quotient is probably non-existant, ortherwise they would have been able to block the terrorists in the room when they had the opportunities. Yet they get a clean chit, what a shame. In the end, every citizen should be allowed to carry a gun for self defence, as in the US, because you cannot entrust your security onto a bunch of ninicompoops, can you?
I think this is some great piece of journalism that is required to keep the establishment on its toes. I just love your newspaper for being so honest and write about real issues. While all electronic and print media is concentrating on "breaking news", it is articles and exposes like these that define real journalism. Keep up the great work. Congrats!!
I would like to congratulate your reporters for such a good investigative story. Hope the government and the police force wakes up now and gear up to tackle crimes of such types.
Somewhere up in these comments, I find an observation that we have the most in efficient government...Well it is the people who form a government in democracies and it is our reponsibiltiy as citizens to ensure that the government delivers .Media is doing a wonderul job by keeping the issue alive but hen from here on wards what?Can we go in for a public interest Litegation asking for efficiacy or time bound plan.Indian Express keep up the presure please!
waiting for orders. .from netas who depend on radicalised muslims' vote and fear their own shadows. .an oxymoron
WELL I WANNA ASK THEM THIS SIMPLE ? HOW IN THE WORLD DOES P CHIDAMBARAM IS DECLARED A WINNER IN ELECTIONS AFTER HAVING LOST THE ELECTIONS?AND THE MEDIA ASKS NO ?S,HOW IN THE WORLD THAT A BUNCH OF 19 YEAR OLD TERRORISTS COULD HOLED OUT AGAINST A STATE N ARMYS ELITE FORCE FOR 4 DAYS IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF A MAJOR ECONOMIC HUB? DO THEY THINK THAT INDIANS EAT SHIT LIKE ZARDARI TO NOT KNOW THIS BULL SHIT STORY OF THEIRS?
This was a gut feeling in my mind which has been now authenticated by you. Whatever be the secne in the builtup area fighting it should not have taken our men more than 12 hours to smoke out or kill the terrorists unless it was a hostage situation. Agreed Mr nagre patil might not be an anti terror expert but the first uniformed responder is always at a greater advantage especially when he had positioned himself in the CCTV control room and was party to the happenings in the designated rooms.Mr. Gafoor now has to say that Nagre Patil did a brave job, there is no doubt about it but this is a failure on the senior level police officials who choose to play safe then and aggrevate the situation. It is not Nagre patil but the likes of the CP and his advisors had then failed to size up the situation and yet the Ram Pradhan committee comes up with a clean chit to Mumbai police.Senior cadre has always successfully diverted such queries by camoflaguing their incompetence with the bravery of dead
This shows how unaccountable is our political system, since 20years we are facing evil of Terrorism , after the attack the govt comes with the report,and then all will forget, and again some attack at somewhere again commitee and report. its better as we all should get training like militery training as in israel
Were the Police, who had the chance to terminate the the terrorists within twelve hours, as well armed as the terrorist? Probably not! How can one expect them to fight with a double barrel manually loading gun agsint a AK40s?
As logn as Electronic Voting Machines are there Congress will rule Centre and its allies will rule the state. Just think you need not alter all EVM's, you just need to alter only for Majority or atleast 40% so that even if you get 20% of Voting from people you are clear Majority and You can do this only in 45% of EVM's across India at various polling stations, were Major people are contesting and larger voting share is there. You can still win even after polls as the program can show anything you want. Just think of P.Chidambaram's winning just after recounting still in debate. Actually there should be no recounting as any number of times you count the machine should show the same result.
Good story.About some people who viewed this in communal/polictical context -- please think @ it in terms of journalism. It is a good piece.
What can be expected of Pandu hawaldars who are good at riding roughshod over hapless public, more used to haptha collection.Did we really expect them to take on terrorists, however badly they were placed for a brief period.