Technology connecting lives in the November 26 terror attacks in Mumbai
By Zafar Anjum
28 Nov 2008
Yesterday morning, once again I realised the futility of reading newspapers for getting news. Mumbai was under siege and my print paper gave me no idea of it.
I reached office and checked my e-mails—that’s when I saw a message from Sree Sreenivasan, a professor of journalism at Columbia University and co-founder of South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) in the US. His message was about a radio blog discussion on the breaking story of the terror attacks in Mumbai.
What! Another terrorist strike in Mumbai?
I was both angry and sad. What were the security and intelligence forces doing that allowed another terror attack on India’s financial nerve centre? I was sad at the loss of innocent lives.
I immediately logged on to various newspaper and TV Web sites, and yes, the news was there in full detail, even as the events were unfolding. The attack was so well-planned and daring in its mounting—11 locations were attacked, resulting in the death of more than 100 people and the injury of over 200. Scores were taken hostage, especially Americans and British nationals.
Clearly, the attackers, whoever they were, were fulfilling two major goals: spread terror in an economically booming India, weakening the country by dividing its people in the name of religion and send a message to the American empire that it could attack its ‘strategic ally’ (India) as casually as possible.
Looking at the scale and the sophistication of the terror attacks, my immediate reaction was that this was India’s 911. Cities such as Mumbai and New Delhi had seen terror attacks before but never at this scale. Even at the time of writing this post, Indian commandos were battling with terrorists at two locations—Hotel Trident (Oberoi) and the Nariman House, where most of the hostages were foreigners, including Americans and Israelis.
It should be noted here that despite India’s soft corner towards the Palestinian cause, India and Israel have close military ties. According to one report, India is the biggest buyer of Israeli arms and munitions, a customer even bigger than the Israeli army.
America is flying in its FBI team and Israel its commandoes to help clear up the hostage situation.
Control centres
The terrorists claimed in an e-mail to be ‘Deccan Mujahideens’—a hitherto unknown group. A report said that the e-mail was sent from a fictitious IP address from Russia. Now it is said that they are most probably members of Lashkar-e Toiba, a Pakistan-based terror outfit that fights for the Kashmiri cause and has links to Al Qaeda.
According to sources quoted in India media, the terrorists had set up control centres in the two hotels after taking hostages. They were trying to communicate with Indian government and TV channels to negotiate.
Earlier in the day yesterday, a terrorist had reportedly called a TV channel to tell the government to free ‘Mujahideens’ in India and to stop persecuting Indian minorities.
The Times of India reported India refused to negotiate with terrorists, even though almost 40 foreigners were held captive by jihadis in Mumbai. India seems to have joined countries such as the US, Israel, Russia and some from Europe in refusing to negotiate with terrorists on hostages, the newspaper states.
While the commando operations were on, the security forces did two things: they engaged the terrorists in ‘talk’ to buy time, and told all TV channels not to show a blow-by-blow account of the operation.
If they did not stop the TV crews from doing this, the terrorists could follow all the developments outside their locations watching the news on TV.
Writing in Outlook, Srinidhi Hande asks for banning live reporting in a hostage crisis. She writes: “Showing such news live, will be immensely useful only to terrorists and their supporters outside. Consider this. The commandos only know that the militants are somewhere inside the hotel, but the militants know everything about the movements and positions of their pursuers through TV. Like: Who is on their trail (army/ NSG/ local police, etc), what is their ETA (estimated time of arrival), which tells them, how much time they have before a gun battle would begin), where they are right now, at the main entrance/ just entered their floor, wow is the world responding? Is there pressure mounting on the government to succumb to the demands of terrorists to get the hostages freed (so that they can act tough during negotiation)? How many of their friends are alive or dead (so that they can assess their strength)…”
Sabina’s story
Amid all this news came the news of Sabina’s disappearance—the only person I knew who got embroiled in this unfortunate situation. Sabina Sehgal Saikia is the Times of India's consulting editor and food critic. I had met her when she was the editor of Delhi Times. She was at the Taj Mahal Hotel when the terrorists struck the place.
The TOI reports that a constant stream of SMSes was exchanged between her and well-wishers, and they got darker by the minute. "So far so good," read one. "I'm shaking," said another. "Desperate firing outside, my window panes are shattered," she continued. Her last SMS was to her husband and the paper also reported that a hotel employee she was in touch with received a frightening text message from Sabina saying: "They are in my bathroom." A search is still on for her.
Techies told to stay away
Meanwhile, techies were told to stay away. The TOI reported that ‘Avoid Mumbai’ was the blanket instruction issued to software professionals on Thursday morning with security arrangements beefed up at their campuses and e-mails reaching their mail boxes before they logged on to their terminals.
Most tech companies have issued a travel advisory to its staff, advising caution and due diligence when travelling to India.
IDG's John Ribeiro reports that in Mumbai terrorist attack, bloggers and Twitter users are helping relay information to worried relatives.
I fervently hope the hostage crisis comes to an end in the next few hours and no more innocent lives are lost.
