The remarkable story of the terrorist attack on India's largest city, told through the eyes of the victims and the gunmen who committed the atrocity.

Terror in Mumbai

Reporter: Dan Reed

Broadcast: 03/08/2009

It was the 26th November 2008 when ten heavily armed gunmen took over a fishing boat in the Arabian Sea and headed for the city of Mumbai on the west coast of India. An hour later their killing spree began.

Their first target was the Leopold Cafe where they killed 11 people. From there they planted bombs inside taxis as the moved across the city. Terror in Mumbai follows the young men every step of the way using telephone calls made between the raid's masterminds in Pakistan and the gunmen in Mumbai. Those calls combine with the testimony of the captured terrorist Ajmal Kasab, to create an extra-ordinary chronology of the attacks.

The calls reveal how the young men are continually reminded they must kill as many people as possible, making sure that whatever happens they must not be taken alive.

Ajmal Kasab, speaking from his hospital bed tells how he and another man attacked the city's train station slaughtering more than 50 people.

The program then hears from the train station survivors who tell how the gunmen coldly cut down innocent people one after another. A young boy describes how six of his family are killed around him. The security forces admit they were overwhelmed and underprepared. Some hid rather than be killed. Others tried to use weapons that would not work and were slaughtered.

As the film progresses the relationship between the attackers and their controllers at the other end of the phone comes into clearer focus.

At times the young men appear utterly ruthless, at other times they break away from their conditioning and register their wonder at the hotel they have taken over. They talk of computers and expensive furniture as if in a wonderland.

As the film progresses the terrorists are told to kill as many people as they can in the Taj Hotel, and then to start a fire. The purpose? To let the world know a symbol of India and the decadent west is being destroyed.

As the phone calls continue it becomes clear the young men are not always willing to kill on command. In one chilling episode one gunman is told to kill a hostage. He stalls for time. Then an hour later he is ordered to shoot. A gunshot is heard.

The calls do not just document the slaughter of innocent people. As Indian commandos close in on the gunmen inside a Jewish school the phone taps record the last moments of the siege and the gunfight between the opposing sides. One gunman says how he is hit, in the leg and the arm. "Do not be taken alive" he is told.

When Lashkar- e-Taiba decided to attack the city of Mumbai they wanted to carry out an attack that would horrify the world. This is the story of that attack from the inside. Terror in Mumbai goes to air on Four Corners Monday 3rd August at 8.30 pm on ABC 1. It is repeated on 4th August at 11.35 pm.


Find out more about the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai with a selection of related articles and other background information.


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