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Terror at Taj Hotel could have ended first night itself

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    The first police team enters the Taj on November 26 file

    Within the first hour of the firing at Café Leopold on 26/11, a small group of armed policemen who pursued the four attackers inside the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers Hotel were presented with 12 golden minutes to restrict, if not eliminate, them as they were holed up inside a room for that duration. Another, much bigger, opportunity came after midnight when the four terrorists took refuge in a second room for nearly two hours and the Mumbai Police had about 120 armed men to take them on.

    CCTV footage accessed by The Indian Express shows that on both occasions, the police squandered the chance waiting for commandos to arrive from New Delhi and launch a counter-offensive — a full 12 hours after the attacks began.

    The first group of policemen to reach the scene of any of the targets attacked that night was a team of six policemen led by DCP (Zone 1) Vishwas Nangre-Patil. The Indian Express photographer Vasant Prabhu tailed that team as it pursued Lashkar militants Abu Shoaib and Abu Umer, who had shot and killed diners at Café Leopold. This team entered the sprawling hotel complex from the same North Court gate at the rear as the terrorists.

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    They reached the heritage wing and sought to hunt the terrorists through the maze of corridors inside, intermittently exchanging fire, challenging AK-47s with their pistols. Unable to make any impact, Nangre-Patil and his team moved to the security control room of the hotel on the second floor, where Taj securitymen were monitoring the unfolding horror through CCTV camera pictures from across the hotel.

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    Next1234
    THE CLEAN CHITBy: Niranjan | 08-Jun-2009 Reply | Forward AND OF COURSE A CLEAN CHIT WAS GIVEN TO THE GOVT. I AM CERTAIN THAT THE CLEAN CHIT WAS GIVEN WITHOUT ASKING ANY QUESTIONS AND CONSIDERING ANY ANSWERS THAT WERE RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE INVETIGATIVE PANEL! SHAME MAHARASHTRA, SHAME GOVT. OF INDIA. FOR ALLOWING SUCH THINGS TO GO ON.
    police roadmaptrashed on 26/11By: G. R. RAO | 06-Jun-2009 Reply | Forward Kudos to your investigative reporting. It is highlyshameful that the chief secretary of the state waited for official communication from the police and wasted almost 1 hour before contacting thecentre. He cme to know about the strike at 9.30 p.m. through TV channel and he took up with the centre only at 10.20p.m. and then only he contacted New Delhi. Such actions or lapses are being patronised by granting extension of their services.
    Failure of Mumbai Police on the day of attack 26/11By: shanthanu | 05-Jun-2009 Reply | Forward When the question you have raised in your paper was raised by the opposition leader our Home Minister has the audacity of pointing earlier occasions of attack rather than looking into the failures of his own security men and assuring prevention of recurrence in the present case. If this callous attitude on the part of our Home Minister is not arrested I am sure there would not be any meaningful discussion in parliament. He should be asked to bemore careful in answering the opposition. PM should mend him to country"s needs.
    KudosBy: Ajay | 05-Jun-2009 Reply | Forward Great piece of journalism, kudos to Indianexpress
    Moscow AttacksBy: Shiva Gopalakrishnan | 04-Jun-2009 Reply | Forward I have a major concern about the way things were handled;1> TV channels should not have been within the 500 m radius of the scene.2> Those that were rescued; it did not look like there was any debriefing; They were facing questions from the media within 10-15 mins of rescue3> I don't know why response like the Moscow attacks were done; this would have yielded us more than one terrorists alive.4> Common sense tells me, if those folks are holed up in one room; just make sure they don't get out of that place;We need to have proper priorities in place for VIP security; Secure the borders and not individual capsule of VIP;
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