How did he get in: question at Fortress Marriott

Three days on, the ethnic Kashmiri is back at work, a slight limp in one leg caused by falling debris — the only physical sign of that dreadful evening. “Allah saved me,” he says, looking skyward. “But 35-40 of my colleagues were not as lucky. It’s sad and a bit scary.”

As a post mortem of one of Pakistan’s deadliest Terror attacks began, investigators grilled Murtaza and other survivors like him on how the truck managed to get so close to the hotel. “It came from the main road on the other side of the hotel. I wouldn’t know who they were trying to target but it was poor people like us who got killed,” he says.

While Vohra has been serving in Islamabad for over a year-and-a-half, Zdarek arrived only last month and was living in the Marriott. “He was quite cheerful,” Vohra told The Indian Express, recalling the dinner at his home. “He was looking for a house and a cook. This is tragic.” On Tuesday, the Indian High Commission cancelled an Iftar reception it was hosting on September 25 as a mark of respect for those killed and wounded in the attack.

Investigations into the attack have made little progress even as a little-known Islamic group called the Fidayeen Islam claimed responsibility late Monday night. But at ‘Ground Zero’ — the name in some sections of the Pakistani media for the site of what has been called the country’s own 9/11 — progress seems to be the key as dozens of workers busy themselves in clearing the debris and repairing the building, which was the only legal watering hole for foreigners in the Pakistani capital.

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