Anyway, Suren, you were talking about Chechen militant theatre debacle? I remember that. Pretty much got the idea that they used some chemical weapon (Kolokol-1, I remember reading).

I don’t want my government experimenting on me. I’ll settle for being ignored.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7760460.stm

You can see that I wasn’t joking when I said the police were armed with World War 2 rifles.

Arun M, I pointed out (to my dad) on the first day that their body armor would not stop rounds from an assault rifle. It’s not the media’s fault but the fault of the police who don’t understand basic things such as establishing a secure perimeter.

@Xavier:
Good points! Esp about police waiting for commandos.

@Marc
There was an article about the vests policemen had. They were meant to protect against 9mm pistols. The police force was cribbing that not enough money is spent on their security. Hell!

I also feel too much info was let out. Who the hell told terrorists NSG and Marine Commandos are coming in? And why the hell did they let the media broadcast everything? THe media shouldn’t be allowed to use cameras.

And it looks like most of the terrorists either got away or weren’t meant to be seen so who knows what’s next. I have zero confidence that they’ll be caught within the next decade. They’ll go to Pakistan and India will send them monthly reminders to extradite them (see Dawood Ibrahim) which will be completely ignored since everyone knows India is all about talk and no action.

You’re saying there was easier access to the roof? That’s just hilarious! They must have bought the chopper just for show.

The primary function of the ATS , despite the misleading name is to probe bomb blasts and arrest those responsible (oddly enough they suck at that as well.. a few people are arrested and mock trials are held and they drag the case for years on end till everyone forgets what happened and the perpetrators get away scott free). if those idiots had established a perimeter and pinned down the terrorists and limited their mobility while waiting for the professionals to arrive they would have saved a lot of lives and also remained alive themselves. but instead they chose to get themselves killed and due to that miscalculation got a lot of innocent people killed in the process.

Also 20 – 25 terrorists attacked the city and at last count there were 9 confirmed killed and 1 confirmed prisoner so where are the rest of them? probably on their way to their next target all because those incompetent police morons fumbled around cluelessly.

2. I completely disagree to saying NSG should have waited to gather more intel before storming the targets.
there was no possibility whatsoever of gathering intel. The terrorists wernt open to negotiations and never revealed their numbers, and there was no way to correlate the eye witness reports. the entire interior of the buildings were in darkness as the power was cut and since the terrorists knew the layout much better than the rescuers and had prepared ambush points no recon team could be sent in advance.

Also you never know if the terrorists would execute the hostages if they made contact with the recon team.

So the only option was to go in force and eliminate the terrorists as quickly as possible. A job which the NSG and the Marine Commandos did Splendidly, given the circumstances.

3. one thing i find really funny is the fact that they had the NSG rappel from a chopper onto the roof of Nariman house… i mean the roof of the house next door was full of more commandos and the walls of the two roofs were touching each other. one of the commandos even jumped over to secure the rope for the guys in the chopper… so why didnt they all just go over the wall ? which would have been much simpler rather than loading up a chopper and then flying all the way out there and then rappeling down.

The worlds eye was on mumbai and i suppose the people in charge of the operation didnt want to disappoint the crowd and the media. Maybe next time they will have helicopter gunships hovering around and fighter jets buzzing around as well.

anyways kudos to all who read the whole post and made it all the way down.

Arun, it’s true. After every attack they say they had intelligence about it. The problem is they don’t have the power to do anything about it. There will be lots of red tape to get past to get even one M1 Garand. I’m happy that news channels were there to cover all the fumbling.

Hari, the terrorists are completely prepared to die. They know they will die and they are not afraid. That is what makes them so dangerous because they become utterly fearless.

Adithya, it goes without saying. They do that in every situation, from the release of a movie to a bomb alert.

vinod, nothing will happen. Don’t worry. Politicians are spineless people who will do nothing that compromises their position of power.