On the tenth anniversary today of the horrific terror attack on Mumbai it is appropriate that I republish an anniversary piece from seven years ago. Here it is:
As a journalist who cut his professional teeth in Bombay in 1981 I felt terrible being peripheral to the terrorist siege and attacks of November 26, 2008, on the city. Watching the mayhem from the suburban comforts of Naperville in Midwestern America felt strangely irresponsible.
Things changed dramatically less than a year later when David Coleman Headley, one of the main plotters behind the attacks, was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare international airport here and plead guilty by federal investigators in return for a deal that took the death penalty as well as his extradition to India off the table. He was a resident of Chicago in as much as someone like him can be a resident of any place. It is an odd thing to say but when the arrest happened followed by the disclosures of how deeply Headley was involved in the planning of the attacks, I felt a sense of having been reinstated to the story.
A journalist has a reflexive need to be part of any major story and if the story happens to be so close to one’s area of interest as the Mumbai attacks were, then that need becomes almost unmanageable. Come to think of it, I have been on the Chicago end of the Mumbai story ever since October 9, 2009, arrest of Headley.
One got to see Headley firsthand during his testimony against his childhood friend and co-accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana in May, this year. I wrote about my impressions of the man on May 25 and they bear repeating here today.
“Key Mumbai terror plotter David Coleman Headley talks about death and destruction with the aloof air of a laboratory technician mixing various chemicals to see which combination would be most combustible.
If there was ever a plan to showcase his remorse about Mumbai, his two days of testimony in the federal court of Judge Harry D. Leinenweber in Chicago, it is going in the opposite direction. Here is a man who says the Mumbai attack evened scores for the bombing of his school in December, 1971 during the India-Pakistan war, that led to the creation of Bangladesh. The man sure holds long grudges.
One had heard about Headley’s cool and measured composure and one is getting to witness it now. As Assistant US Attorney Daniel Collins carefully walks him through all major and minor details of the Mumbai plot, Headley responds as if he has dropped by for a casual chat. His replies are precise, almost well-rehearsed. He remembers details of who said what years ago, making me wonder whether he is improvising it. He is under oath and improvisation is not an option. He cannot possibly wing it. And yet I find it hard to conceive of someone who can remember minute details about his dozens of meetings with the masterminds of the Mumbai attacks.
The man is clearly good at his chosen profession. That chosen profession may not be all that respectable but he gave his absolute best. Yesterday, for instance, while talking about his reconnaissance of various potential sites to strike, he spoke of Mumbai’s Siddhi Vinayak Temple. He visited the temple to shoot some surveillance video. While he was there it struck him that it would be a great idea to get some red and yellow threads that the faithful tie around their wrists. He carried those threads, described in the court with some liberty as bracelets, back to Pakistan and gave it to Sajid Mir, the Lashkar-e-Taiba operative who oversaw the training of the ten Mumbai attackers. They indeed wore those threads in order to blend in.”
In a separate news dispatch for the IANS wire on May 24, I found this to be particularly compelling:
“Headley's attorney John Theis sat in the front row as his client answered questions in somewhat muffled tones even while disclosing remarkable details.
At one point as he discussed the kind of conversations he had had with his Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) handler Sajid Mir, Headley said he was even told how to pray in order to avoid "mihrab", the dark spot that devout Muslim men have on their foreheads because of the regular friction with the floor while praying.
The significance of this particular detail being that since Headley was to travel to Mumbai as a white American on a US passport, a mark like that on his forehead may arouse suspicion. As a result, he was advised to pray without touching his forehead to the ground.
Another seemingly minor but crucial detail that came to light during his four-hour-long testimony concerned the train arrival and departure announcements at Mumbai's Victoria Terminus or Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.
Headley told the court that he pointed out to both Sajid Mir and Major Iqbal, a shadowy figure reportedly belonging to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), that the announcements were made in English and Marathi. If the attackers did not know English, they could run into difficulty trying to find out when trains were arriving.”
Having left Mumbai a long time ago I am not qualified to comment on whether the city’s authorities have learnt any lessons from the attacks. From what I read in the Indian media, it does not appear to be the case. When you consider the level of planning that terrorists do, I am not sure if the law enforcement agencies are able to anticipate all the scenarios with equal meticulousness.