(The following article is from the December 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

B. Prasant, PV correspondent in India

Mumbai, November 28 - I tap these lines out in a small shanty-like structure some way off but opposite the Taj hotel, one of the landmarks of south Mumbai. A deathly firefight still rages in one of the sixth floor rooms, smoke billowing out, muffled sounds of grenades repeatedly bursting.

       Late at night on November 26, 40-odd heavily-armed, "commando"-trained terrorists, mostly but not wholly of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, simultaneously attacked several places: two large multi-storeyed hotels, the Taj and the Oberoi Trident, in the south city, preferred by foreign tourists from the West and the East; Mumbai's crowded VT Railway terminus, near the Taj; Santa Cruz airport up in north-west Mumbai; Cama and GT hospitals in south Mumbai; the Leopold restaurant, opposite VT terminus, another favourite haunt of foreign tourists; Nariman Point building, another skyscraper that houses the HQ of a branch of the Hasidic sect; two petrol pumps near the Nariman Point; and a large stretch of urban area abutting the two hotels.

     There is still a lone gunfighter putting up a fierce resistance and even counterattack in the maze of corridors, rooms and annexes of the Taj. The fourth and the sixth floors are aflame - we feel the heat even 1000 metres away.

     What was the modus operandi? Two clean-shaven blue jeans/white shirt youth, each carrying a large tote bag, entered the VT terminus, took out US-built MI6s and sprayed bullets around, then leapt out onto the street and commandeered a Police SUV cruiser. They knew the area well; as one drove around, the other took single shots at pedestrians. Then the duo disappeared.

     The Santa Cruz airport episode was a mere tip of the iceberg that was to follow. Four men burst shells from slide-action shot guns, thrust past the dying security guards, shot at the panicky passengers in the lounge, and left. We do not know how they later joined up with the base at the Taj.

     The real massacre started at the Leopold. Carrying UZI sub-machine guns, four youth clad in denim jackets, blue jeans, sneakers, two of them curiously carrying Hindu religious symbols slung around their right wrists, targeted foreigners enjoying their late evening drink following dinner. A quick deathly spray of bullets, five stun grenades and four grenades tossed in - and they vanished into the by now howling and panic-ridden south city, leaving behind the dead and wounded.

     Another group of five or six broke into the main elevator of the Nariman Point building, wearing full body armour, thick protective headgear, gloves and jackboots. Bursts of automatic rifles followed, and a tragedy unfolded. They quickly identified the rabbi and his family of nine, shot each one execution fashion, a bullet each into the back of the neck.  One body - a woman's - was flung out from the third floor onto the street below.

     The fifth group of three men shot their way into the Trident, went in a very familiar fashion to the service elevator, jumped out at the fifth floor, and then started kicking open doors, asking for people holding UK or US passports.  Six foreigners were shot dead.  The rest of the guests were locked up from outside of the rooms. At every place the assassins raided, they cut off the cable TV, electricity, and running water.  Each group carried a small portable TV.

     The largest group of 15-odd entered the Taj which apparently they wanted to blow up, as another terrorist group ("India-sponsored" had screamed Gen Pervez Musharraf) had blown up the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan some months back. The intruders made for rooms in the fourth and sixth floors, where two "sleeper cells" lay ready with grenade launchers, at least two dozen Kalashnikovs, 200 or more filled-in magazines for the rifles, loose AK 47 and AK 56 shells, 20-odd Browning 9mm pistols, 100-odd loaded clips, large butcher knives with serrated edges, and at least one grenade launcher.

     These men utilised the maze of corridors to shuffle around each floor, hunt people with British and US passports, and just shot them, no word spoken. Then they split up, visited the seven lobbies of the seven middle floors, started to spray bullets, and then went into the kitchens with their message of death. Hundreds died at the Taj. At last count, the deflated official figures be darned, no less than 40-odd foreigners died cruelly at the Taj hotel.

     By the morning of November 27, the administration, prodded by the irate people of Mumbai, started to react. The first police contingent, sent in perhaps as cannon fodder, were simply cut down without getting in a single shot. Then the commandos started to descend - 2500 of them to tackle the 40-odd highly motivated and trained assassins. The various commando groups, among whom cooperation was conspicuous only by its absence, belonged to the Army, the Navy, and the anti-terrorist squad.

     Fierce gun battles commenced at all points. The conflict zones resembled vast balls of fire and reverberated with thunderous noise shocks as grenades were lobbed back and forth. Glass shards lay a foot thick in front of the place where I was holed up with an Indian TV crew. The commando leaders, never lacking misplaced braggadocio, soon started to brief the TV, giving out their positions as well as their plans, even speaking of the "great dedication, high  motivation, and superb training" of the assassins, making the latter happy as well as aware of the police moves.

     Finally, after 18 hours of intense firefight, the terrorists either fell or made good their escape. Among the last to die was a young man at the Taj who blew himself up in a sight too horrendous to describe near one of the windows overlooking the street.

     The Indian commandos took a bad hit. We could see how the element of surprise lay with the killers, who were supposed to be first-timers in India, if one believed the official TV and radio channels, and the politicians of various shades.

     A set of questions remain after the last bullet has been fired and the last mortal remains of those slain taken away.

     Did the cache of arms, ammunitions, survival food rations, clothing, body armours, medicines and bottles of water precede the arrival of the killers, and if so, then why and how?

     Who came in the small boat found floating around the Mumbai dock area with a headless body and a smashed-in sat-phone that had been used to call up various cities and town in India?

     Why was the media allowed to depict with great detail every move of the Indian commandos throughout the operation, including the rappelling down onto the rooftop of the Nariman Point building? After seeing the repeated shots of this on their portable TV sets, the assassins hastened to kill the rabbi and his family.

     Why does the Congress-run government specifically dub the terrorists as from Karachi and not from any other place?

     Why was Prime Minister Singh's earlier request to his Pakistani counterpart to send in the chief of the Pakistan's Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) chief first acceded to and then suddenly refused after a mysterious phone call from a foreign embassy to Pakistan prime minister's office?

     Why was commandant Hemant Karkarey of the Mumbai police (who had of late unearthed rich and credible material about the involvement of a section of Hinduised army officers in the recent Malegaon and Modasa blasts) sent in to face the killers at Cama hospital in an armoured vest visibly too large for his size, leaving large parts of his neck and chest exposed, and with a head gear that he had to reject because it was too small? Hemant, a three-decade acquaintance of mine, was a dedicated, much-decorated professional with impeccable secular credentials; he died, shot precisely in the neck and upper chest with three shots from large-calibre MI6 bullets.

     Finally, and this is treading on pretty dangerous ground, the BBC World Service TV kept showing footage of Indian commandos entering and exiting the Nariman Point building while commenting that the men were "Israeli commandos." So, who is right and why?

   One worrying after-thought for the people of the country as a whole - the authorities say that 15 terrorists have been killed and one taken into custody. Where have the rest gone?