All hell is breaking loose in Mumbai as a result of serial bomb blasts, shootings and now the taking of hostages. 80 are now dead and hundreds injured. The word on the street is that the terrorists are targeting those with American and British passports and have taken many hostage inside hotels in the ritzier southern part of Bombay. As of this writing, two terrorists are confirmed dead and seven in police custody, but it is still unknown whether the terrorists are homegrown or foreign. (If you’re up to looking at it, here is a picture of one of the terrorists.) Sadly, the chief of the State of Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, Hemant Karkare, was killed along with two other senior officers.
As usual, mainstream media is useless and slow in its updates. I’ve been following the #mumbai Twitter feed and Mahalo is doing a great job rounding up all the news. Blogger Vinu is on the scene and is uploading many of his pictures to Flickr. Gauravonomics has an excellent post up about the power of real-time citizen journalism during these attacks; he has a more extensive set of links. Here is an annotated Google map of Mumbai attack locations. Although a friend in Mumbai says the CNN-IBN and NDTV coverage are pretty restrained, here are links: CNN-IBN and NDTV
Twitter user yelvington just said, “Fascinating. CNN is filling airtime; #mumbai channel is full of tidbits posted by witnesses.” Another chided India’s NDTV for showing footage from one part of the city and referring to it as another (New Orleanians, remember when FOXCNNMSNBC did this during Katrina and Gustav? It’s not just us.)
This is especially painful right now because my parents are in India, even if in Chennai many hundreds of miles away. We have friends in Mumbai, friends who are getting ready to travel there and D, my parents and I are planning to visit northern and northwestern India next year. Only a little while ago, Jaipur, Delhi and Bangalore were hit. The scariest part is not knowing what’s next, where, by whom and why. All those people hurt by people who want to hurt …
The Indian army is finally moving in. I often refer to the Indian government and army as approximately as useful as New Orleans city government or our spineless Democrats, but Mumbai can now use all the help it gets.
Please hope and pray for India.
Peace and my best wishes to the people of Mumbai
Good stuff Maitri. This is just terrible.
If it gets to be too much come by for a drink. Call if you need us, I can imagine how much it sucks to watch.
thinking of you
((((((hugs))))))
Please…make sure that you and yours are well and accounted for at this trying time.
CNN international was covering it (i’m here in holland still, up near groningen) and the anchors were brits… they kept switching to the IBN feed and as soon as they would say something informative about what was actually happening, they would switch back to the brit anchors blathering about how this “proves that we should all be afraid of security in these luxury hotels”… instead of informing on the situation, they told us to be scared. unacceptable journalism.
does ndtv stream on the web??
horrible indeed. i hope all your people are safe.
I do worry and my prayers are out there for the folks in Mumbai.
Thanks, all. Mumbai needs your good wishes.
Alli, there’s a link to the NDTV videos in my post above but other than that, I don’t know. Anyone else know of NDTV live feeds?
There’s a CNN/IBN feed:
http://www.in.com/videos/watchvideo-cnn-ibn-1626373.html
Still hunting down an NDTV feed…
NDTV live feed:
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/video/video_live.aspx?id=0
I am from Sri Lanka,
We have been dealing with terrorist for more than 30 years. We are the very best in dealing with terrorists.
I think this is high time, this has happened to India, Thamilnandu political leaders & organizations support terrorist (LTTE terrorist) in Sri Lanka. They just got the taste of their own medicine.
Also the handing of the situation is not mature from Indian authorities. Take a lesson from Sri Lankan forces.
Time to realize terrorist are terrorist no matter which angle you look at it.
– Mindika –
NDTV Live Feed
An interesting view on Indian terrorism from Sri Lanka (well experienced in terror) on what India should NOT be tempted to do in the aftermath of the terror.
http://www.groundviews.org/2008/11/28/is-india-reaping-a-harvest-of-hatred-sown-by-indians-we-have-seen-it-all-before-a-sri-lankan-perspective/
@ Mandika,
Thanks for the update – ‘terrorist are terrorist’ coz that’s the only sensible thing written in your post; rest all I am afraid is horse manure. Indians don’t really know how true is it that LTTE get support from India (We no apparent benefit from a small Island nation, which is in dark ages if you count opinion of a common Indian)
But looking at your post, we get this feeling that u are quite happy that it happned to Indians… (No where u condemn the attacks).
I trust all srilanks don’t have same mentality; and hope that this is just one of post.
Attacks on Mumbai is a coward act of some sense less fools, which by when this post get published will be dead.
We know how to save our land and deal with crisis situation.
– Kunal –
My prayers for the safety of all in Mumbai
Mindika and Kunal,
I suggest that both of you read the article provided by darthmyopius. Blame is a pointless exercise. Along with looking at the example of Sri Lanka during its own clash with terrorists, observe America after 9/11 and how the racial and religious profiling of Arabs has spilled over to any brown or “suspicious-looking” person with a foreign name or accent. The moment we close our minds in such a way we become the terrorists we hate.
However, for the record, Mindika, the comment you made that “India got a taste of its own medicine” was truly tasteless (in case you’ve forgotten, Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination was a very bitter pill to swallow), and goes against your Don’t Blame and Terrorists Are Terrorists thesis. Please stick with the latter if you want to continue a discussion.
One thing that the article doesn’t mention and that I will elaborate upon is that Hindus pointing the finger at Muslims and Muslims doing the same to Hindus is useless, and will only lead to more bombings, shootings and deaths. The answer is secular (and by secular I mean all religions truly have equal merit) in nature; it boils down to who wants to live in India peacefully while respecting the religions of his/her neighbors and who doesn’t. Islam and Hinduism aren’t going away any time soon.