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Living with the scars, a month after the carnage in Mumbai

— Photo: AP

In solidarity: Mumbaikars pay homage on Friday to victims of the November 26 terror attacks.

MUMBAI: After a sober Christmas, Mumbai commemorated a month of the terror attacks in which 10 gunmen held the city to ransom for three days from November 26, but its usual breezy spirit was missing. This past month witnessed an outpouring of grief and shock and violent reactions to the government’s inability to prevent the terror strike.

On Friday, concerts, painting exhibitions, memorial meetings and tributes to the martyrs who died fighting the terrorists marked the day when over 170 people lost their lives in the space of a few hours and nearly 300 were injured.

Sixteen policemen, including Joint Commissioner of Police (Anti-Terrorism Squad) Hemant Karkare and two special forces personnel, died in the attacks. Combat near the Cama Hospital and the metro junction took the lives of Karkare and two senior police officers, apart from two policemen and two ward boys. Nine Jewish people died in the siege of Nariman House. Two taxi blasts at Wadi Bunder and Vile Parle claimed five lives. Nine terrorists were killed and one was caught alive.

While hospitals still have nearly 40-odd patients recuperating from grievous injuries, the two five-star hotels, which were the targets of a prolonged siege, reopened a few days earlier. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), where the gunmen entered first and killed 56 people and injured nearly 100, looked its busy self. Only the cracked glass with a bullet hole in front of the announcer’s cabin bore signs of that heinous assault. Commuters and long distance passengers, swarmed its vast interiors, while stray policemen wearing bulletproof vests and armed with outdated rifles stood guard. There was no formal reopening of the CST unlike the Taj or the Oberoi. The terminus, which sees nearly 27 lakh people go through its gates each day, was back to its usual routine within hours of the attack.

Photographer Sebastian D’Souza, who stunned the world with his pictures of the two terrorists, including the lone surviving one, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman, remembers the policemen who died next to him that day and the salesman at Wheelers Bookstore near the entrance of the suburban railway section. “The terrorists were accurate and did not waste bullets. They shot from the hip and killed the Wheeler’s salesman,” said D’Souza who was the first photographer inside CST at that time. It was only three days later did he realise that he was the first to get pictures of a terrorist in action.

Leopold Cafe and the bullet holes in the restaurant’s walls have become a tourist attraction for many visitors to the city as well as to Mumbaikars. According to owner Farzad Jehani, ever since the terror attack he has noticed that there are many more local and Indian visitors. Other than the bullet holes in the glass panes and the walls, the reminder this restaurant was attacked is a small donation box with pictures of the two cafe employees who lost their lives in the firing. Ten people were killed at the café, a restaurant and bar on the Colaba Causeway.

Four days after it came face to face with terror, Leopold’s reopened for business.

The “terror tourists” have become a common sight at Leo’s, as it is known. There were people standing near the bullet holes and taking pictures. Even children were inspecting the damaged walls and the bullet marks. “I have come to Mumbai for a wedding but I wanted to see the places the terrorists attacked,” said Dilip Shah, a businessman from Hyderabad, who had taken a picture of himself near the bullet punctured walls.

Wilting plants on the second floor of Nariman House are the only sign that this place was recently inhabited. The rest of the five-storey building bears all the marks of full-fledged warfare.

Bullet marks, smashed glass, mangled metal grills, grenade blast craters, blackened walls and sagging masonry. Just 30 days ago, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, his wife Rivka and seven other Israeli and Israeli-Americans were held captive by two gunmen. The massive operation that was launched for their rescue ended tragically on November 28, with the death of nine captives inside.

Three more deaths are also associated with Nariman House — an electrician who died in a grenade blast when the terrorists first entered, a couple who lived across the way and were watching the terrorists and a local boy who was shot in the random firing by the terrorists when they stormed the building. The only moment of hope at that time was when the Holtzbergs’ two-year-old son, Moshe, his nanny, Sandra Samuel, and the cook, Zakir Hussein, managed to escape.

But for the 30 friends and relatives of the victims and the emissaries of the Chabad, it is time to put all this behind them. The mandatory 30 days of mourning were over and December 25 was a day to move forward. That it coincided with the Chanukah, the festival of lights, only made their resolve stronger.

Rabbi Shimon Rosenberg, father of Rivka Holtzberg who had come from Afula, Israel, said, “We will continue. A little bit of light dispels a lot of darkness.” While speaking of rebuilding, Rabbi Kotlarsky, vice-chairman of the educational arm of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, said Rabbi Dov Goldberg and his wife Cherna, who usually worked in Goa, had temporarily taken over the needs of the community in Mumbai.

“So you see, we never left Mumbai,” said the Rabbi.

The two five-star hotels opened in less than a month, and rich tributes were paid to the staff who went above and beyond the call of duty to save lives. Sixty-three people lost their lives in the hotels, including 22 staff members. The industry has bounced back and The Trident expects to have 22-25 per cent of the rooms occupied on December 31, 2008, according to a hotel spokesperson. However, both The Oberoi and the heritage wing of the Taj will take a long time to be restored.