Upstairs, Bialka had just fallen asleep and was rousted by an explosion. He squeezed through a small fifth-floor bathroom window and shimmied down water pipes, hopping from one air-conditioning unit to another until he reached the ground.

Aroused by the commotion, an angry crowd had already gathered outside the building and mistook Bialka for a militant. They attacked him. “Twice I tried to get near the building, wanting to go back in and help,” he recalled. “But they put me in a cab and took me to the police.”

Neighbours heard two blood-curdling screams, one from a man and the other from a woman, and gathered outside the centre. A terrorist tossed out a grenade, killing an Indian in the crowd.

By the time security officer Raz and another armed Israeli arrived, the crowd was so agitated that it chased them to the police station too. They were detained for hours.

Israelis and Indians alike say it took police long to respond. Kamaljeet Singh, who witnessed the grenade explosion, said he rushed to a police station and then to a nearby naval base, but that officers told him they had no permission from higher-ups to act.

The house was quiet the next morning, Thursday, until nanny Sandra Samuel heard Moshe’s cries. Leaving her hideout in a laundry room, the 44-year-old woman ran up a flight of stairs and found the bodies of the rabbi, his 28-year-old wife and two guests. They had apparently been shot, and Moshe was crying at his parents’ side, his pants drenched in blood. The terrorists were apparently on the roof.

... contd.