By Bibhudatta Pradhan and Vipin Nair
Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- India’s Home Minister Shivraj Patil resigned today, taking “moral” responsibility after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed 195 people, the deadliest such assault in the country in 15 years.
Patil was criticized by opposition parties and others for intelligence and operational failures, apart from decision-making delays, in tackling this and other terrorist attacks in India. About 300 people have died this year in India as bombs have exploded in markets, mosques, bus stations and theaters, with most of the attacks still unsolved.
The resignation has been submitted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s office, M. Veerappa Moily, a spokesman for the ruling Congress party, said by telephone. The minister offered his resignation on “moral grounds,” said R.K. Khatri, Patil’s personal assistant in a phone interview. A replacement for Patil hasn’t been announced.
The Mumbai terrorist attacks, which began on Nov. 26 at two luxury hotels, a railway terminal and a building housing a Jewish center, lasted until yesterday morning.
The attacks on India’s financial hub may stall the peace process with Pakistan as Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee has held elements from the predominantly Muslim neighbor responsible.
India may halt talks with its neighbor and suspend a five- year-old cease-fire on the Line of Control that separates the two sides in Kashmir, NDTV reported today. It may also boost troops on the Kashmir border and suspend rail and air links with Pakistan, NDTV said.
FBI-Style Agency
Singh is seeking support for a crime-fighting agency modeled on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Singh has called a meeting this evening in New Delhi with all the political parties in parliament to discuss the measures. In Washington yesterday, President George W. Bush pledged U.S. help to investigate the assault.
“The killers who struck this week are brutal and violent, but terror will not have the final word,” Bush said yesterday as he returned to the White House after spending the Thanksgiving Day holiday at Camp David in Maryland. India “can count on the world’s oldest democracy to stand by their side.”
The 60-hour siege puts a spotlight on security. P.R.S. Oberoi, chairman of the Oberoi Group that owns one of the hotels, urged the government to let businesses defend themselves.
“Their intention was to kill as many people as possible and do as much damage as possible,” Oberoi said of the terrorists. “It takes a long, long time for even one person to be armed. I wanted a security person for me, and it took nearly a year.”
Pakistani Elements
Mukherjee said on Nov. 28 elements from Pakistan, which has fought three wars with India, were behind the attacks. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi challenged India to provide evidence of a link.
Singh yesterday met with chiefs of defense services and intelligence agencies after the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party blamed his government for doing too little, according to the Press Trust of India, which quoted BJP leader L. K. Advani as criticizing the government’s “non-serious approach.”
President-elect Barack Obama, briefed by Bush during the siege, called Singh Nov. 28 to offer condolences and said “he would be monitoring the situation closely,” Nick Shapiro, an Obama spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Nine Attackers Killed
Vilasrao Deshmukh, chief minister of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, said nine of the 10 attackers were killed. More than 295 people were injured, M.L. Kumawat, secretary of internal security at the Home Ministry, told reporters in New Delhi yesterday. S. Jadhav, an official at the city’s disaster management unit, put the death toll at 195.
The Times of India, the nation’s biggest newspaper, reported the death toll could be the highest from a terrorist attack in the country. The figure may surpass the death toll of 257 in a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993, it said.
The indiscriminate killing of businessmen and tourists in five-star hotels marks an escalation in India’s battle against Islamic extremism.
The Oberoi Group had tightened security after the Islamabad Marriott hotel was bombed in September and will seek a meeting among all hoteliers and state and national governments to review security, P.R.S. Oberoi said.
Ratan Tata, the head of the Tata Group, which owns the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel in Mumbai, said there had been warning of a possible terrorist attack, following which security measures had been put in place.
Taj Curbs
The entry curbs, which were relaxed before the attacks, wouldn’t have stopped the attacks, he said.
“It’s ironic that we did have such a warning and we did have some measures,” which included metal detectors and restricted parking, Tata told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview posted on the broadcaster’s Web site today. “If I look at what we had, which all of us complained about, it could not have stopped what took place.”
Security forces recovered four AK-47s, 55 magazines and four pistols from the Trident-Oberoi hotel complex and Nariman House, Kumawat said. The authorities have yet to compile a list of arms recovered from the Taj Mahal Hotel, he said.
Six Americans died, U.S. Ambassador David Mulford said in New Delhi. More U.S. citizens are missing. Gavriel Holtzberg, the 29-year-old rabbi who ran the Chabad mission in Mumbai, and his wife Rivka, 28, were among five people killed after gunmen raided the five-story Chabad House synagogue. Rabbi Leibish Teitelbaum, a Brooklyn native, was also killed, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement.
Foreigners Killed
The attacks killed three Germans, one Japanese, two Canadians and a Briton, chief minister Deshmukh said. Two Australians died and more may have been killed, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said. Two French nationals died, President Nicolas Sarkozy said.
“No cause can make this acceptable, none, ever,” Sarkozy told reporters in Doha at a United Nations conference. “It’s barbarism.”
Indian forces yesterday combed the Taj Mahal hotel for unexploded devices and weapons after a shootout with three militants ended the siege. The ground floor of the 565-room hotel was flooded and strewn with debris after militants fought special forces in gun and grenade battles.
The terrorists held out because they knew the layout of the century-old hotel and were well trained in explosives and guns, authorities said.
Deccan Mujahedeen
A little-known Islamist group, the Deccan Mujahedeen, claimed responsibility for this week’s shootings and explosions across the western coastal city, Indian Home Ministry official Kumawat said.
The attackers began planning their assaults six months ago, India’s NDTV reported, citing an account from a captured terrorist. A seized global positioning system showed some of the group left Karachi, Pakistan, as early as Nov. 12, NDTV said.
Ten terrorists plotted the attacks for a year, the U.K.’s Sunday Telegraph reported, citing the police interrogation report of a person thought to be a member of the group. The terrorists were dedicated to fighting for an independent Kashmir, the disputed region claimed by India and Pakistan.
The group reached Mumbai in three speedboats from India’s Gujarat region after arriving in one boat from Karachi, the Mumbai Mirror said.
Lashkar, Jaish
Lashkar-i-Taiba or Jaish-i-Muhammad, two Muslim extremist terrorist groups from Pakistan that have attacked India in the past, may be involved, MSNBC reported on its Web site, citing unidentified analysts and counterterrorism officials. The groups are linked to violence in the disputed Kashmir region.
U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials said evidence in the past two days points to Lashkar-i-Taiba as being responsible, the New York Times reported. The group has a “maritime capability” and could mount a sophisticated operation in Mumbai, the Times reported, citing counterterrorism officials it didn’t identify.
“We came up against highly motivated terrorists,” Vice- Admiral J.S. Bedi, whose commandos led the assault against the militants, said in televised comments.
India will “go after” individuals and organizations behind the attacks, which were “well-planned with external linkages,” Singh said in a televised address, without identifying nations. “We will take the strongest possible measures to ensure that there is no repetition of such terrorist acts,” Singh said on Nov. 27 in his address to the nation.
To contact the reporters on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net. Vipin V. Nair in Mumbai at vnair12@bloomberg.net;
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