The Mumbai attacks of 26/11 were horrible, terrible and indeed unforgettable. Mumbaikars, who had the first-hand experience of the attacks and made it out alive are still fear-stricken by what they saw and witnessed in November 2008. Indo-Pak rivalry saw a new dimension as 10 Pakistani terrorists arrived at the ports of Mumbai and killed several thousand with guns and grenades.
The attacks which went up to around 60 hours are recorded and recalled time and again in various memoirs, books, and movies. No Indian is unacquainted of the atrocities of what can be called the Indian 9/11.
There is how the tragic incident unfolded:
• Out of 24-26 people who were trained by Lashkar-e-Tayyiba for the attacks, 10 were selected for the real execution.
• The places that were selected for the attacks in Mumbai were Taj Mahal Palace, Oberoi Trident, Nariman House, ad Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus.
• The attackers, who left Karachi by boat on November 23, 2008, were given the blueprints of these places.
• These men hijacked a boat of fishermen, killing everyone except the captain who sailed them to the port of Mumbai.
• The captain was killed as the boat neared the port and the terrorists took speedboats to reach Macchimar Nagar where six of them disembarked while the rest four kept sailing. These six were then further divided into two groups.
• More than 10 coordinated shootings and bombings took place in Mumbai, stretched over three days.
• Apart from the above-mentioned venues, they also attacked Chabad House, Cama Hospital, Leopold Café, a domestic airport, and a police station.
• The first group, including Ajmal Kasab and Ismail Khan, reached CST and open fired with their AK-47 rifles. 58 were killed and 104 injured.
• The second group attacked the Nariman House and the neighboring Chabad House, before which was blown a gas station in the neighbor. The surprised public which got onto their windows responding to the gas station blast was then fired and killed by the terrorists.
• The next site attacked was the Leopold café, and meanwhile, two timer bombs were reported to have blasted two taxis in the city.
• After this, the terrorists reached the Taj Hotel one after the other. There they open fired, threw grenades, and bombed the central dome of the hotel.
• Then was attacked the last of the primary sites, Oberoi hotel, after which Kasab and Ismail went to Cama Hospital where the latter was killed and the former arrested.
• The next day had started the series of freeing of hostages and several escapades.
• A series of loud explosions were again heard in the evening of 27th November 2008 from the Oberoi Trident hotel.
• Commandoes rescued many hostages from the terror-stricken venues, especially Nariman House and Oberoi.
• The attack finally ended around 2:40 am in Oberoi Trident, where 30 people were killed.
After the incident, Kasab was convicted, tried, and finally executed in November 2012. Many other names associated with the attacks like US citizen David Coleman Headley (aka Daood Gilani) and Canadian citizen Tahawwu Husain Rana were arrested and convicted. The leader of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba Hafiz Saeed, however, has still not been arrested.