The Wall Street Journal spoke to a man who survived execution by the terrorists in Mumbai’s Oberoi Trident hotel by playing dead.
The two gunmen spared two people who claimed to be Muslims from Turkey before firing on the others, said the survivor.
He was one of a group of 16 diners at the Tiffin restaurant rounded up by the gunmen, who took them up to the 20th floor. The Wall Street Journal says:
The terrorists lined up the 13 men and three women and lifted their weapons. "Why are you doing this to us?" a man called out. "We haven't done anything to you."
"Remember Babri Masjid?" one of the gunmen shouted, referring to a 16th-century mosque built by India's first Mughal Muslim emperor and destroyed by Hindu radicals in 1992.
“We are Turkish. We are Muslim," someone in the group screamed. One of the gunmen motioned for two Turks in the group to step aside.
Then they pointed their weapons at the rest and squeezed the triggers.
A few minutes later they walked upstairs to the terrace. Unbeknownst to the terrorists, four of the men were still alive; one of the survivors later provided the account of the shooting to The Wall Street Journal.
The gunmen later returned to the scene and filmed the dead bodies with their mobile phones. After the gunmen left, the four injured men crept out to a terrace and hid behind a cooling tower. For more than 24 hours, they didn't move from their hiding place, drinking small amounts of red liquid inside the cooling system to soothe their thirst, says the Wall Street Journal.
It is the most concise and comprehensive report I have read on the three-day reign of terror in Mumbai.
It begins with the terrorists’ coming ashore in Mumbai on Wednesday evening and ends with the final shootout at the Taj hotel early on Saturday morning when Indian commandos shot dead the last three gunmen.
The report talks about the failure of the Indian security system.
But what is striking is the bravery of some of the Indian policemen.
The sole terrorist captured alive was overpowered by policemen armed with only batons, says the Wall Street Journal.
He was one of two gunmen who fired bullets and hurled grenades at the CST railway station, killing more than 40 people, and then attacked the nearby Cama Hospital, killing two unarmed guards at the entrance and a policeman in a gunfight on the top floor. Then they raced out of the hospital and opened fire on a police SUV, killing Mumbai’s Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Hemant Karkare and two other officers.
The terrorists dumped the officers’ bodies on the ground and sped off in the SUV, pursued by another police vehicle.
At one point, the terrorists ditched the SUV and hijacked a private car – a Skoda, police said. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Two hours later, they ran into a large police roadblock erected on a key road leading out of south Mumbai, at Chowpatty Beach.
Skidding to a halt 30 feet away from the roadblock, the Skoda's driver blinded the police with high beams and, flipping wipers, began spraying fluid on the windshield so that officers couldn't see into the car, said sub-inspector Bhaskar Kadam, one of the officers manning the roadblock.
The three policemen armed with guns drew them. The nine others waved their bamboo sticks. Revving the engine, the car tried to U-turn but got stuck on the median. The man in the passenger seat rolled out and started shooting, killing one officer and wounding another. The surviving baton-wielding officers jumped on him, knocking him unconscious. Policemen with guns shot the driver dead.
This pair's killing spree was over. Police later identified the gunman taken alive as Mr. Qasab, from the Punjab region of Pakistan, who they say is providing details of the plot.
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