100 Dead in India Terror Attacks

[Rasputin]

[indian_blues]

RIP.

Yet to sanitize taj, oberoi hotels and nariman building, hope the bastard$ dead soon.

[Rasputin]

Harishchandra Shiverhankar scribbled furiously on a notepad, gesturing with his fingers to explain his last bloody memories of Wednesday night before waking up in an unfamiliar hospital bed.

The 56-year-old was walking towards the Metro cinema when he felt his legs collapse - a bullet had been shot through his lower back. A hand then grasped his hair, pulled back his head and a blade slit his neck. He had been caught in the vortex of violence unleashed by people who wanted to murder, not just maim.

Setting down his pad he manages to croak: "This should have never happened to me."

The office worker's story, told from his bed in Mumbai's JJ hospital, is part of a largely hidden tragedy - that behind the headlines of wealthy westerners fleeing Mumbai's terror frontline it was ordinary Indians who bore the brunt of the bloody attack on this city of 19 million people.

Next door to Shiverhankar lies Jayaram Chavan, his leg shattered by bullets. He had been running for his train home to the western suburbs amid the Victorian splendour of Mumbai's main Chhatrapati Shivaji rail terminal when two young men with guns in their hands opened fire. "I wanted to go home, that's all. Why me?"

Outside the private Bombay hospital journalists jostled for news of the three British nationals inside, but little was heard about the 70 Indians that lay next to them. Part of the reason for the lack of publicity about local casualties is that hospitals themselves have banned journalists, pointing out that the militants had targeted wards in the first wave of attacks. No one, unless they could prove they were hospital workers or related to the victims, was supposed to be allowed in. But the Guardian was allowed access by doctors keen to publicise Mumbai's suffering.

In these wards terror has given way to blood and tears. Standing in front of hospital boards displaying the dead and the nearly dead were old women in saris and burkas looking for names of loved ones lost. On blood-soaked beds friends and relatives sat tending the injured.

Indian hospitals are never places for the fainthearted. JJ hospital is one of the city's best public health centres, but yesterday its corridors were smudged with blood and staircases littered with the detritus of medical procedures: wet tissues, empty cartons and used dressings. In the wards nurses rushed from bed to bed looking after not so much human figures as writhing masses of plastic pipes attached to heaps of bandages. Only the flicker of eyes gave away the fact that a patient lay beneath.

The sense that India's creaking public health system might be overwhelmed was palpable. Users of the social media site Twitter, popular with many Indians, sent pleas for blood donors to make their way to hospitals in Mumbai where doctors were faced with low stocks and rising casualties. Wards overflowed with people and doctors said they had worked on three operations an hour.

The bodies kept on coming. In the main hallway of JJ hospital orderlies placed on the floor three bodies swaddled in white cotton. Two were young girls, their faces caked in blood. The other was a man, distinguishable only by his black leather shoes. They all worked in the Trident hotel, wearing the blue and white uniform of service staff. Doctors said they were expecting 30 more bodies to emerge from the smoking hulk of the building and fear that the death toll will soar once the Taj is opened up.

A few miles away in Bombay hospital there were more stories of how the Indian dream had turned into a nightmare. Gunjun Nagpal had been celebrating her 31st birthday at the Golden Dragon restaurant in the Taj Mahal hotel when two gunmen sprayed her table with bullets. She, her mother and her father were killed instantly. Kamal Nagpal, Gunjun's cousin, said her family had been wiped out. "My sister is hanging on for dear life. She's the only one left. We are victims but who is bringing the war [to India]?"

One doctor said that at first "no one could believe that the flow of casualties would ever end. We are a city hospital not an army casualty ward. You have to ask how many bullet wounds and bomb burns we can cope with."

The Bombay hospital, which has waived all fees for those caught up in the bloody events of this week, has also been treating commandos who fell in the line of duty. One doctor said he had never seen such wounds. "Machine gun bullets to the head are not something we see a lot of. Even in Mumbai," said one physician.

Day of drama
• At least 150 killed, 284 wounded

• Gun battles and explosions continue at Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel

• Five hostages killed in raid at Jewish centre

• At least 14 foreigners - three Germans, two Americans, two French, one Australian, a Briton, a Canadian, an Italian, a Japanese, a Singaporean and a Thai - among the dead

• Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, claims initial evidence showed "elements with links to Pakistan are involved"

• Gordon Brown plays down reports that Britons of Pakistani origin were involved in the attacks

[Rasputin]

Mumbai on Sunday mopped up the streets where Islamist gunmen rampaged and killed nearly 200 people over three days, while Indian anger over the attack's alleged Pakistani links threatened the nuclear rivals' ties.

Anger at the intelligence failure and delayed response to the attacks on two of the best-known luxury hotels and other landmarks in India's financial capital prompted federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil to submit his resignation.

Newspaper editorials and commentaries blasted politicians for failing to prevent the attacks and for taking advantage of its fallout before elections on Delhi on Saturday and national polls due by May.

Indian officials have said most, perhaps all, of the 10 Islamist attackers who held Mumbai hostage with frenzied attacks using assault rifles and grenades came from Pakistan, a Muslim nation carved out of Hindu-majority India in 1947.

India said on Sunday it had proof of a Pakistani link to the attacks, raising the prospect of a breakdown of peace efforts going on since 2004. The two countries have fought three wars since 1947.

"We will increase security and strengthen it at a war level like we have never done it before," Sriprakash Jaiswal, India's minister of state for home affairs told Reuters on Sunday.

Pakistan has also said it would move troops from its western border with Afghanistan, where security forces are battling al Qaeda and Taliban fighters as part of the U.S.-led campaign against militancy, to the Indian border if tension escalated.

An official in Islamabad said the next one to two days would be crucial for the nuclear-armed neighbors'' relations. Pakistan has condemned the assaults and denied any involvement by state agencies.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani telephoned opposition politicians late on Saturday to brief them on the crisis and garner support.

"These political leaders assured the prime minister of their full support and cooperation at this critical juncture," Gilani's office said. Gilani had canceled a trip to Hong Kong, an official said.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has said he would act swiftly on any evidence of Pakistani involvement.

MOPPING THE BLOOD

The three-day rampage and siege in Mumbai turned India's financial and entertainment hub into a televised war zone.

On Sunday morning, the smell of disinfectant was strong outside Cafe Leopold, and the sidewalk wet from the mopping -- a very different sight from Wednesday night, when blood-splattered shoes and napkins lay strewn among broken furniture and glass.

"We are opening today. I'm just waiting for my work force to turn up. We've cleaned up, put everything in order," said Farhang Jehani, who with his brother Farzad, owns and runs the cafe.
They embarked on a peace process in 2004 that has ground on for the past four years.

"These are sensitive moments," Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a news conference. "The situation is serious, let us not fool ourselves ... when the people in India feel this is 9/11 for India."

A high ranking security officer in Pakistan said tension with India was escalating rapidly. "They'll have clarity of thought and we'll have clarity of the situation in next 24-48 hours," he said.

India's internal politics are integral to the fallout from the attacks too. Singh is facing an election by May and renewed accusations from India's main opposition, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, that Congress is weak on security.

"Brutal terror strikes at will. Weak government. Unwilling and incapable. Fight terror -- Vote BJP," said one election ad, written over a blood-red stain on a black background.

India said evidence was mounting to suggest the men who attacked Mumbai came by sea from Karachi, Pakistan's main port.

"Investigation carried out so far has revealed the hand of Pakistan-based groups in the Mumbai attack," Sriprakash Jaiswal, India's minister of state for home affairs, told Reuters.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, battling Islamic radicals in his own nation, told CNN-IBN television he would cooperate with the investigations.

"If any evidence comes of any individual or group in any part of my country, I shall take the swiftest of action in the light of evidence and in front of the world," he said.

India's Home Ministry said the official toll was 183 killed. Earlier, Mumbai disaster authorities said at least 195 people had been killed and 295 wounded.

The attacks struck at the heart of Mumbai, the engine of an economic boom that has made India a favorite emerging market.

The city of 18 million is also home to the "Bollywood" film industry, the epitome of glamour in a country blighted by poverty.

[Rasputin]

هند نام مظنونان حملات بمبئی را اعلام کرد

بدا عبدالرحمان (چپ) و عبدالرحمان چهوتا
مقام* های دولت هند نام 9 مظنون به دست داشتن در حملات اخیر بمبئی را که در جریان درگیری با پلیس کشته شدند، اعلام کردند.

عکسهای هشت نفر از آنان منتشر شده اما گفته می شود که جسد نفر نهم به شدت سوخته است.

پلیس می گوید هر 9 نفر پاکستانی بودند اما اعلام نکردند که چگونه يکی از پیکارجویان به نام اعظم امیر قصاب که تحت بازجویی است، زنده مانده است.

اين حملات روز 26 نوامبر آغاز شد که دستکم 170 کشته برجای گذاشت.

هند پیکارجویان موسوم به لشگر طیبه را که در پاکستان مستقر هستند، مسئول اين حملات می داند.

پیشتر دولت پاکستان اعلام کرده بود که دو نفر از رهبران پیکارجویان را در اختیار دارد اما آنها را تحویل دولت هند نخواهد داد.

دولت پاکستان در سال 2002 لشکر طیبه را غیرقانونی اعلام کرده بود.

مظنونان به دست داشتن در حملات بمبئی
اسماعیل خان معروف به ابو اسماعیل
محمد اجمل امیر معروف به ابو مجاهد (زنده)
ناصر معروف به ابو عمر
نذیر معروف به ابو عمر
فهد اللہ معروف به ابو فهد
جاوید معروف به ابو علی
حفیظ ارشد معروف به بدا عبدالرحمان
بابر عمران معروف به ابو عکاشا
عبد الرحمان معروف عبد الرحمان چهوتا راکش ماریا، رئیس تحقیقات پلیس بمبئی گفته است که عکسهای مظنونان یا از روی اجساد آنها برداشته شده و یا عکسهای کارت شناسایی است که همراهشان بوده است.

عکسهایی که از اجساد برداشته شده است برای نمایش بسیار مشمئز کننده است.


به گفته وی آنها بین 20 تا 28 بوده است و عده ای از آنها از نام مستعار استفاده می کردند.

گفته می شود که جوانترين آنها مردی 20 ساله با نام شعیب از ایالت پنجاب بوده است.

آقای ماریا گفته است که سه نفر از اين پیکارجویان نیز اهل شهر مولتان در مرزک پاکستان بوده اند و رهبر آنها اسماعیل خان، 25 ساله، اهل ایالت سرحد شمال غربی بوده است.


پیشتر، گزارش شده بود که نیروهای پاکستانی در حوالی مظفر آباد، مرکز کشمیر تحت کنترل پاکستان، عملیاتی انجام داده اند.


طبق این گزارش ها نیروهای دولتی پاکستان روز یکشنبه (7 دسامبر) به اردوگاهی در نزدیکی مظفر آباد که گفته می شود مورد استفاده گروه اسلامی "لشکر طیبه" بوده است، حمله کرده اند.


دولت پاکستان در روزهای اخیر برای اقدام علیه گروه لشکر طیبه به شدت تحت فشار قرار داشته است.


گروه لشکر طیبه که برای استقلال منطقه کشمیر از هند می جنگد، دست داشتن در حملات بمبئی را رد کرده است.