And yet, constables rushed out of police stations without weapons only to find the attackers had fled when they returned with their archaic guns. Despite a clear deployment plan in place for such an emergency, over a dozen top police officers — whose job was to lead, plan and coordinate — rushed to attack sites armed with little other than their sense of duty. Result: across the city that night, there sprang up as many control centres as there were officers.

Not only did this fuel panic in the force, it delayed a concerted response by more than 10 hours when each second was precious.

It wasn’t meant to be this way.

For, the Mumbai Police has a clearly established standard operating procedure (SOP) for such crises. Put in place way back in 1993 after the serial bomb blasts, it called for a Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations) to take charge of his area to co-ordinate responses, introduced assault vehicles into the force and after the 7/11 train bombings, it included setting up a unified command-and-control centre.

Within an hour of the attack, however, that SOP was itself the first casualty.

The most devastating fallout of this came just over two hours later when ATS chief Hemant Karkare, Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Kamte and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar rushed into a combat zone with little information or planning and ended up paying for it with their lives. But more of that later.

Right from the very first response, the confusion was all too evident as Abu Shoaib and Abu Umer entered Café Leopold restaurant in Colaba just after 9.30 pm, shot at diners and hurled at least two grenades.

Three policemen from the Colaba Police Station, located diagonally opposite Leo’s, ran out of their compound on hearing a “loud noise” but when they saw firing, they rushed back in to get their weapons. By the time they returned with their 303s and SLRs, it was too late. Shoaib and Umer had killed 11 people, including two foreigners, wounded 28 and fled -- into the Taj Mahal hotel, barely minutes away.

By now, the Mumbai Police wireless network was crackling. Records accessed by The Indian Express show that the first message of the attack to the central Control Room reached at 9.48 pm and was instantly relayed to mobile patrols.

It's here that all procedure broke down.

The SOP clearly says the DCP should immediately take charge of a "crisis spot" and this should be replicated if there are "multiple crisis spots." It also specifies that in case of such an emergency, the Mumbai Police Commissioner should immediately hold a crisis meeting to plan the immediate response. All this is to ensure that in the shortest possible time, a unified command and control centre is in place that coordinates field operations based on inputs from DCPs across the city.

Just the opposite happened.

As they heard about the attacks from the Control Room, several IPS officers, irrespective of rank or areas of jurisdiction, decided on their own to rush to different spots with no clarity on what their role or strategy would be.

No crisis meeting was held, with Police Commissioner Hassan Gafoor driving straight from his Malabar Hill residence to the Oberoi-Trident, which had also been attacked by two other gunmen by then.

According to the SOP, the Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) should assume charge of the police Control Room as the crisis management commander. However, when Gafoor learnt of the attacks, he rang up JCP (Crime) Rakesh Maria and directed him to take charge of the Control Room.

Maria and K L Prasad, JCP (Law and Order), who reside in Avanti building in Malabar Hill and were both at home at the time, left in the same vehicle. While Prasad got off at the Oberoi-Trident, Maria went to the Control Room.

Mumbai Police is divided into nine zones that are numbered and the Nariman Point-Colaba area falls under Zone 1. IPS officer Vishwas Nangre-Patil, DCP of Zone 1, was in his vehicle and a 10-minute drive away from the Taj Mahal Hotel & Towers, when he heard that it had been attacked and he decided to reach the hotel.

En route, state Director General of Police A N Roy, who, incidentally, was returning from a wedding at the very same Taj hotel, heard about the attacks on his wireless and called Patil. Told that the DCP was about to reach the hotel, Roy diverted his car to his office and set up a control room there. He was joined by then state Home Minister R R Patil but the random deployment of police forces continued.

ATS chief Karkare, who had reached his home in Dadar at around 9.45 p.m., headed back to south Mumbai after he got a call from the Control Room informing him of the attacks. Accompanied by an inspector and four constables, he reached the CST station where Additional DGP (Railways) and his predecessor in the ATS, K P Raghuvanshi, were already present with DCP (Zone 2) Sanjay Mohite.

On being told that the CST attackers had gone into a lane leading to Cama Hospital, Karkare gathered his men and rushed in that direction on foot.

Ditto for Additional CP Kamte, who lives in European Building near Byculla Police Station, and had reached home at about 10 p.m. He left within minutes after being called about the attacks by the East Region Control Room and reached the Azad Maidan Police Station Club where he was told he could not take his vehicle towards Cama Hospital next door due to the firing there. So he started walking ahead with his wireless operator.

Inspector Salaskar was all over the place. He reached home at 9.30 p.m. but left at 9.50 p.m. and went to Colaba Police Station after Maria told him to question two "terrorists" who had been caught and taken there but who turned out to be Israeli Consulate security guards.

When Salaskar discovered this, Maria asked him to head to the city police headquarters. But on his way, when Salaskar was informed about firing in Cama, he decided to rush towards the rear gate of the hospital. Karkare and Kamte were already in that lane and got into Salaskar's vehicle with their men and drove into a blind alley.

Additional Commissioner of Police (ATS) Parambir Singh and Prasad were at the Oberoi-Trident along with Gafoor, and they were later joined by Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Sanjay Barve and Additional Commissioner of Police (South Region) K Venkatesham.

Even here, there was no communication between the officers and Gafoor, who was co-ordinating with the Control Room over the wireless set from his official vehicle.

At the Taj, DCP Patil had gone after the terrorists inside the hotel with a few policemen armed just with pistols. He was accompanied by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Branch) Rajvardhan, who rushed to the hotel without his service revolver, and Inspector General of Police (MSEB Vigilance) Hemant Nagrale.

Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Deven Bharti also arrived at the hotel later after sending help to Additional Commissioner of Police (Central Region) Sadanand Date, injured in a shootout with two other terrorists at Cama Hospital.

That was not all.

For nearly an hour after the attacks began, the police did not inform Chief Secretary Johny Joseph, who would play the central bureaucratic role in coordinating the response as Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was away in Kerala. Joseph learnt of the attacks when he switched on TV news at around 9.30 p.m. That was followed by a call from a newspaper reporter who had seen the firing at the CST station, after which the dean of the St George's hospital called saying a large number of bodies were being brought in.

The police called him with news of the attack around 10.20 pm and only then was the decision to seek Central forces put into motion.

By then, however, the terrorist takeover of the sites was complete.

ALL OVER THE PLACE

HASSAN GAFOOR, Commissioner: Went from Malabar Hill home to Oberoi-Trident.

RAKESH MARIA, JCP (Crime): Went from Malabar Hill home to control room.

K L PRASAD, JCP (Law & Order): Left Malabar Hill home with Maria, got off at Oberoi-Trident.

VISHWAS NANGRE PATIL, DCP Zone 1: Rushed to Taj with a few men and pistols.

A N ROY, DGP: Had just left Taj. Set up control room in his office; was joined by politicians.

HEMANT KARKARE, ATS chief: Reached CST from Dadar home, was told attackers had gone towards Cama. Followed them on foot.

ASHOK KAMTE, Addl CP: Reached Azad Maidan from Byculla home. Was warned of firing ahead. Rushed forward on foot.

VIJAY SALASKAR, Inspector: On Maria’s orders, went to Colaba PS, then towards HQ. Heard about Cama firing, headed there. Picked up Kamte and Karkare in his car and drove into blind alley.

K P RAGHUVANSHI, Addl DGP (Railways); SANJAY MOHITE, DCP Zone 2: At CST.

PARAMBIR SINGH, Addl CP (ATS); SANJAY BARVE, JCP (Traffic); K VENKATESHAM, Addl CP (South): At Oberoi-Trident.

RAJVARDHAN, DCP (Special Branch); HEMANT NAGRALE, I-G (MSEB Vigilance); DEVEN BHARTI, Addl CP (Crime): At Taj.