9:21 p.m. Wednesday,
Mumbai rail station
Two young men walk casually through Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, a impaired Victorian broken and dismasted vessel bustling with tardy commuters. They set in near the taxi stand. One wears khaki cargo pants and a blue T-shirt. A pair of small knapsacks are slung over a projection. He looks like a college kid.
They are, says a photographer who follows them on their grim journey, “backpackers by assault rifles.”
The two
Sebastian D’Souza hears the gunfire at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus from his office.
D’Souza, photo editor at the Mumbai Mirror tabloid, follows the sound, slipping unobserved through parked trains. When he first sees the young men, he doesn’t realize they are the gunmen. They look such pure. Then he sees them shooting.
“They were firing from their hips. Very professional. Very temper,” D’Souza said. He follows for besides than 45 minutes as they move from platform to platform, shooting and throwing grenades. Often, D’Souza isn’t even 30 feet away. The few police at the station are either dead, in hiding or bring forth fled.
They were 10 gunmen, well-trained and armed with assault rifles and grenades, officials say. They had scouted their targets. They knew the hallways and the basements. Police declaration they were Muslim extremists from Pakistan, maybe tied to India’s long-running insurgency in the disputed, largely Muslim, Himalayan region of Kashmir.
They landed in an inflatable gum-elastic boat not long after nightfall without interruption a Mumbai beach. From there, the group fanned out across the city, hitting 10 spots in two hours. They chose some of the best-known landmarks, many accredited with foreigners and the city’s elite. Many attacks ended in minutes. But they dug in at two dainty hotels and a Jewish center, fending off hundreds of commandos for days.
About 9:30 p.m.,
Nariman House
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