The Siege: The Attack on the Taj Mumbai

by Cathy Scott-Clark

  He reminded himself, as he stifled a yawn, that this was a small price to pay. Policing Zone 1 was all about the glory. It covered the city’s smartest hotels, apartments and villas, Mumbai’s historical heart, as well as the central backpacker district of Colaba. Zone 1 also came with a filing cabinet full of drawbacks: VIP visits (like the Prime Minister’s), foreign dignitaries jetting in, and mouthy well-to-do residents. These were people who earned in a day what a dishonest policeman could acquire in a career, and what a straightforward copper would never earn.

  With the sleeves of his well-pressed shirt precisely rolled, Patil sported a tidy moustache and a square, stubborn jaw. He had been a surprising choice for Zone 1 when he got the job five months before. A native Marathi speaker from isolated Kokrud, a village of temples and farmers some 220 miles to the south, he had risen above his upbringing as a country boy. In a subcontinent where names mean everything, the Patils were traditionally landowners and warriors, and Vishwas Patil, the son of a renowned weightlifter, spent most of his childhood thinking he would join the army. He had been ‘crazy about uniforms’ since he was a boy, joining the National Cadet College in his teens, winning a gold medal for shooting. But having topped his class, he defied the expectations of his father to gain a Master’s degree before sitting the elite civil service exams in 1997. He joined the Indian Police Service, his first posting in a rural spot where he understood the people like they were his family.

  The boy from Kokrud had assumed he would not get so far. The force in Maharashtra and elsewhere was led by privileged officers like Mumbai’s Commissioner Gafoor, the city’s police chief, the son of a nawab from Hyderabad. But in a little under a decade the outsider Patil had got himself noticed, shaking things up with high-profile campaigns, challenging privilege and appeasing conservatives, being promoted to the cherished DCP position in South Mumbai in June 2008. And now he was here at the top table, alongside the most senior cops in the city, including Commissioner Gafoor and Rakesh Maria, the legendary chief of Crime Branch.

  As he sat listening to his seniors, Patil was becoming deeply worried. What gnawed away at him was how little attention anyone was paying to a number of warnings that had been staring him in the face since he started here, and that, if taken seriously, would surely have put the city on a war footing, irrespective of whether the PM was coming.

  He had received the initial tip-off in his first week, a report that the Leopold Café, a popular tourist hangout near the Taj, was on a terrorist hitlist. Over the following days, looking through intelligence chits, Patil had discovered a disturbing pattern of warnings that were frequent and detailed. His predecessors had received dozens of classified bulletins about potential terrorist strikes on the city. But, as far as he could see, the intelligence agencies and the police had ignored them.

  The first gobbet had arrived in August 2006 and stated that Lashkar-e-Toiba, an influential Pakistani jihadi organization that had cut its teeth sending Muslim insurgents to fight the Indian security forces in divided Kashmir, was ‘making preparations’ for a major assault on Mumbai. Several five-star hotels were mentioned as targets, including the Trident–Oberoi and the Taj. Since then there had been twenty-five further alerts, many of them delivered by the CIA to the Indian government’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, and passed on to India’s domestic Intelligence Bureau.

  Patil had pondered the origin of the information. When he examined the detail, it seemed clear that the US was tapping into a significant source, the welter of leads drawing a picture of someone right inside the notoriously closed Lashkar, an outfit that everyone believed was funded by Pakistani intelligence.

  It was not as though terror was new to Mumbai. Over the last few decades, the city had witnessed a dozen serious attacks in which more than 500 had been killed and almost 2,000 injured. After the most recent carnage in July 2006, when a series of train blasts had killed 181, the Maharashtra government had constituted a study group. Late by many months, it had still not filed any recommendations.

  Patil could see that all previous incidents consisted of concealed bombs left on bicycles and scooters, abandoned in market places and outside prominent buildings. Some of the materiel was homemade, derived from potassium chlorate purloined from textile mills, where it was used as a colour fixative. Other blasts relied on black soap, as locals called the sticky military explosive RDX, smuggled into the country from Pakistan or the Middle East. But the more recent intelligence suggested Lashkar was plotting something new, a live raid on the city. Three warnings specifically mentioned the use of fidayeen, meaning guerrillas armed with grenades and AK-47s who fought to the death, inflicting heavy casualties before being overcome. Lashkar had deployed this strategy in Indian-administered Kashmir to deadly effect.

  Eleven warnings suggested the plan would involve multiple simultaneous attacks. Six warnings pointed to a seaborne infiltration, which would be a first in India. Zone 1 lay at the narrowest part of the city peninsula and was accessible from Back Bay to the west and the harbour and docks to the east. Patil had contacted the coast guard and asked what was being done to beef up security. ‘Nothing,’ he was told. He called the DCP responsible for the port, who confided that he was so short of funding that he did not have a single high-speed boat to chase waterborne suspects. He had taken to hiring fishing vessels using his own money to get around his patch.

  Unsure of how to proceed, Patil sought advice from one of his close friends on the force, DCP Rajvardhan Sinha, the deputy in charge at SB2, the wing of Special Branch responsible for monitoring foreigners. Patil and Sinha, who was known universally as Rajvardhan, had both graduated into the police service as batch-mates in 1997, although their career paths had taken them in different directions. Rajvardhan had been born in the fractious northern Indian state of Bihar, and his first superintendent posting was among the toughest any policeman could imagine: Gadchiroli, a town in the wild east of Maharashtra. It was part of the so-called Red Corridor, a stronghold of Naxalite rebels. Named after a village in West Bengal where the movement started, the Naxals had purportedly taken up guns to overthrow corrupt landlords, protecting local tribes from exploitation and stopping land grabs by corporations. The police were caught in the middle, with some officers enraged at what they saw as having to do the government’s dirty work, while others took the opportunity to become combat-ready.

  Rajvardhan, who had a dramatic duelling scar running diagonally across the top of his nose, was in the latter camp. ‘You get that killer instinct when you are in the jungle,’ he joked with his colleagues. In his first week his convoy had been hit by an IED, trucks and jeeps spun on to their roofs, the men hosed down with bullets in an ambush as they fled into the forests. The cool-headed Rajvardhan had led them to safety on foot, without losing a man. His advice to Patil when he learned about the massing intelligence in Mumbai was to take the warnings seriously. ‘If the shit hits the fan,’ he told his friend, ‘you’ll be the one who has to deal with it.’

  Patil had started nightly meetings for his brightest officers, giving them specific tasks in key locations. He personally visited several places named as targets. In July 2008, he began focusing on the unregulated fishermen’s colony at the southern end of Back Bay called Badhwar Park. It was close to the World Trade Centre, the Trident–Oberoi and the Taj hotel. Patil wrote to the Commandant Coast Guards, Western Region HQ, warning: ‘If anti-social/terrorist/ anti-national elements desire to attack by rocket launcher, these boats can be used.’

  Then, the Intelligence Bureau had received two more date-specific warnings about the Taj. One concerned a possible attack on 24 May and the other on 11 August, both prompted by tip-offs from a source in Pakistan said to be inside Lashkar. A more political officer might have avoided taking on the country’s most glamorous hotel, steered by one of the subcontinent’s most powerful industrialist families, the Tatas. Patil piled straight in, demanding a meeting on 12 August and spending nine hours with the securit
y chief, Sunil Kudiyadi. In his subsequent report to Commissioner Gafoor, the Zone 1 DCP concluded: ‘Overall, the management has done very little to adapt the hotel to the changing security environment in the city.’

  Patil was not a hotelier, and had no idea about the need to beguile guests. What he saw was a historic building ringed by a large number of unsecured, undefendable entrances and easily assailable porous walls. There was CCTV but it was ambiguously labelled and poorly organized. There was an alcohol godown (store) on the third floor, which was prohibited because of the fire risk. The systems in place to detect weapons and explosives being smuggled into the hotel were slapdash. No blast barriers or screens were installed, meaning the Taj remained vulnerable to a drive-by or drive-in suicide bomber. Patil told Kudiyadi: ‘Don’t think about what has happened in this city. Think about what they’ve not yet done. If they have set charges on motorbikes, look up to the skies.’ Patil wished to create a fortress, while the Taj needed to remain a theatre.

  After the 12 August meeting Patil had decided to make things official. He issued written advice to Kudiyadi, copying in the General Manager, Karambir Kang. Given the building pattern of US-supplied warnings, he recommended that the hotel install blast barriers, armed police pickets and snipers on the roof. The advice was politely rebuffed: guests wanted to be greeted by brightly uniformed chobedars (doormen), not a SWAT team that would undermine the hotel’s luxury image.

  He made some progress after 20 September 2008, when a massive truck bomb devastated the five-star Marriott hotel in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, killing more than fifty people. As grim scenes from the blast site were broadcast across India, Patil secured a meeting with the Taj management. Over the next few days, he drew up twenty-six emergency measures, including police gunmen overlooking the main porch and the deployment of between six and nine armed officers below. He recommended a security grille for the glass-fronted North-cote side door at the southern end of the Palace, automatic locking for other entrances and the permanent closure of the Palace lobby doors overlooking Back Bay. All staff, guests and visitors should enter the hotel through one choke point, the Tower lobby, where there would be metal detectors, bag checks and pat-downs. By the second week of October, the Taj had implemented many of these suggestions and Patil went on leave, with the hotel pledging to complete the rest.

  Now at the security meeting Patil recommended something similar be done at the Trident–Oberoi, where the PM would be speaking. ‘The city is ripe for an attack,’ he warned. The intelligence services knew it too. One recent warning from the CIA commented that ‘Lashkar is equipped and ready to launch a broadside against the city.’

  7 p.m. – room 316, Palace wing

  Back in the Taj, Kelly was still in the bathroom, ‘doing girly things’, as Will watched the darkening sky turn purple. He banged on the door. ‘We won’t have time for shopping and a beer.’ She emerged in a strapless maxi-dress and sandals, with blood-red nails and lipstick to match. Perfect.

  They set off for the shops of Colaba Causeway, a crowded strip two blocks behind the hotel. They were here for such a short time that they wanted to sample it all. But after the reverie of the beach, and the sterility of the hotel lobby, it was far too manic, and seeing a free table inside the Leopold Café they dived in. A Mumbai institution, it looked like a cross between a Victorian dispensary and an ice cream parlour, and had been in the hands of the same Parsi family since 1871.

  It was happy hour. ‘Lets have beers and jalapenos,’ Will suggested, loving the buzz. They drained a couple of pints, talked about eating there and then ruled it out, sticking to the plan of an elegant dinner at the Taj. Meandering back, they came up Best Marg and entered the pristine hotel through the Northcote entrance. ‘No security here,’ Will ribbed Kelly. ‘If you wanted to raid this place you would come this way.’ Walking along the chilled marble corridor towards the Palace lobby, passing empty boutiques and a display case of illustrious former guests – Neil Armstrong, Yehudi Menuhin and Gamal Abdel Nasser – they stopped at the poolside bar, and had another drink, served by an amicable steward, Adil Irani.

  For a few moments they chatted with him about Goa. He had been there once or twice and a cousin ran a bar. But soon he became distracted by the noise of firecrackers and shouting out in the street, and called over his manager, Amit Peshave. ‘What’s the kerfuffle?’ Amit shrugged: ‘It’s nothing.’ The manager was still fretting about his Italian report. When was he going to file it? He rushed off to see what was going on in Shamiana, at the rear of the main lobby.

  Kelly and Will paid up and went to check in online for their flights home. Will sent a quick email to his father and siblings too. He was looking forward to a beer, some music and a game at the Arsenal. ‘Fancy coming over for a curry on Sunday?’ he signed off. ‘I’m cooking.’

  Up on the sixth floor of the Palace, the critic Sabina Saikia was in her suite, dressed in a beautiful sari, a large Hindu bindi on her forehead and with her hair pulled into a tight bun on top of her head. She had made it out to the society wedding in Parsi Hall only to beat a retreat back to the Taj, her head spinning, her kidneys aching. After three days of eating and drinking, her body had revolted, and when her butler had come over to help, she had vomited on his shoe. Unflappable, he got on with clearing up the mess, asking if she needed a doctor. Mortified, Sabina sent him out for medicine, needing to be on her own.

  She texted Ambreen Khan for advice, sounding addled and upset. ‘Throw on your track pants,’ Ambreen suggested, adding that she would call round as soon as her function at the Trident–Oberoi was over. Sabina looked out of the window at a sleek yacht gleaming in the harbour. It looked like a party was going on. She texted Ambreen again: ‘Come over, I’ve lit candles, there are flowers and dinner. I’m waiting for you.’

  A few paces away, in their sixth-floor apartment, Karambir Kang’s family was back after an afternoon shopping trip. Elder son Uday was busy working on a school project and Samar was preparing for his Cathedral School admission interview on 3 December. The boys seemed so happy and full of life, so Neeti made a snap decision to get new portraits taken as a surprise for her husband. She called down to the photographers in Taj Memories, a studio on the first floor. Pearl Dubash, the manager, arranged for someone to come at 8 p.m. Neeti called Karambir for a catch-up. The traffic had been grinding as expected, but he had arrived at the Taj Lands End party. They were putting on quite a show, he said, and there was a rumour that Bollywood top-draw Shah Rukh Khan might turn up. He promised to slip away as soon as he could. Neeti said she had something for him. ‘Well the kids do,’ she confided. The photo would be their surprise.

  9 p.m. – the Tower lobby

  Suited visitors and wedding guests in saris and gowns filtered in, heading for the Crystal Room reception or dinner, walking across the white Italian marble and apricot silk rugs. Guests sat in the lobby’s scooped-back chairs sipping nimbu pani (lemonade) from heavy crystal glasses that rested on nests of onyx tables.

  Outside on the steps, a scrum of noisy MEPs and their staff spilled out of their bus, greeted with marigold garlands. Propping up the check-in counter were six burly ex-commandos who worked for Nicholls Steyn & Associates, a South African VIP protection company that had many lucrative contracts, including providing security advice to the annual Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles. Hired by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), they were part of the advance team for the forthcoming Champions League Twenty20 cricket tournament and had arrived off the back of another job in Dubai. It had been a late night – fireworks and a performance by Kylie Minogue – and they were feeling groggy.

  ‘Go and dump the luggage,’ Bob Nicholls, the British-born boss, told his men. He had been in town for a couple of days already, meeting with Sunil Kudiyadi, the Taj’s security chief, Karambir Kang, the police and the BCCI. ‘Let’s eat and have a few beers.’ The new arrivals wanted Chinese. But the only available table for seven was up in Souk, on the top floor of the Towe
r. ‘More goat,’ one of the commandos muttered, as they went to freshen up.

  By 9.15 p.m., the sleek, glass-walled Souk, in the crow’s nest of the Tower, with its big views out over the Gateway of India and the Arabian Sea, was filling up with diners. Nicholls and his team sat hunched in conversation around one of the glass tables by the windows. Mumbai police were taking their time to embrace the security needs of the forthcoming cricket tournament and over the next couple of days they would have to pile on the pressure.

  Across the room, Ravi Dharnidharka, a 31-year-old US Marine captain and fighter pilot of Indian descent, took a table against the far wall. He was with his brother and their Indian relatives. It was the San Diego-based Ravi’s first time in Mumbai since coming over with his father as a teenager. After his father had died unexpectedly young, Ravi had lost touch with the Mumbai side of the family and had not seen his grandfather for thirteen years. For a long time, he had ‘wanted to reconnect’, but he had got enmeshed in two rough tours of Iraq, including flying combat missions during Operation Phantom Fury, the ferocious battle for Fallujah that began in November 2004. Led by the Marine Corps, more than a hundred US soldiers had been killed along with thousands of Iraqis. Ravi, who flew Harriers to soften up insurgent strongholds, had ‘literally hit the ground running’. When he eventually got home, he took a while to readjust.

  Now he had found the time to make it over to India, and the past ten days had been a whirlwind of old and new relatives. Wrapped up for the past four years in America’s ‘war on terror’ as he had been, mixed feelings about his own foreign-ness and Asian roots swam around his head. Earlier this evening, he had gone to meet a cousin who lived close to Badhwar Park, off Cuffe Parade, and she had shown him the view from her window over the fishermen’s huts lining a small inlet where brightly painted boats were anchored. As he watched the sun set and the fishermen mend their nets, he had felt truly relaxed for the first time in years. Now he was looking forward to a good dinner and a catch-up with another cousin. Later, they had plans to meet up with relatives who were eating at the Trident–Oberoi hotel. His cousin pointed to it through the Souk windows, all lit up like a lighthouse at Nariman Point. ‘What an amazing view,’ he commented. ‘It’s like sitting in fishbowl on top of world.’