In Wake of Attacks, India-Pakistan Tensions Grow
By ROBERT F. WORTH
New York Times, December 1
MUMBAI, India — In a new sign of rising tensions between two nuclear-armed neighbors, Indian officials summoned Pakistan’s ambassador Monday evening and told him that Pakistani nationals were responsible for the terrorist attacks here last week and that they must be punished. With public anger building against both the Indian government and Pakistan, officials of India’s Foreign Ministry also suggested that the planners of the attacks are still at large in Pakistan, and that they expected “strong action would be taken” by Pakistan against those responsible for the violence, according to a statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs. Nine of the 10 men who appear to have carried out the attacks are now dead, with the remaining one in custody. The statement added tartly that Pakistan’s actions “needed to match the sentiments expressed by its leadership that it wishes to have a qualitatively new relationship with India.”
It was not clear whether India had supplied Pakistan with any proof of its claims. Pakistani officials have said they are not aware of any links to Pakistan-based militants, and that they would act swiftly if they found one.
The Indian government is facing strong criticism at home for its handling of the attacks, in which 173 people were killed over three bloody days here in the country’s financial capital. (The authorities revised the number downward on Monday, saying that some names had been counted twice.) With elections just months away the government needs to be seen as acting decisively in the face of the atrocities. But it could be accused of raising a red herring if it does not furnish convincing evidence for its claims of Pakistani involvement.
There is also a groundswell of popular anger here aimed at Pakistan, and the attacks have raised tensions between the two countries to a level not seen since 2001, when a suicide attack on the Indian parliament pushed them to the brink of war. The ominous atmosphere poses a special challenge for the United States, a strong ally of India that also depends on Pakistan for cooperation in fighting Al Qaeda. Renewed tensions between India and Pakistan could distract Pakistan from that project. President Bush has dispatched Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to India, where she is expected to arrive on Wednesday. Speaking in London on Monday, she called on Pakistan in blunt terms “to follow the evidence wherever it leads,” adding “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions myself on this, but I do think that this is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation.”
India’s assertion that the attackers were all Pakistani echoes a claim by the one attacker who was captured alive, identified as Ajmal Amir Qasab, said Inspector Rakesh Maria, head of the crime control bureau at the Mumbai police, in a news conference. Mr. Qasab also said he was a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Islamist group blamed for terrorist attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir and elsewhere, Inspector Maria said. However, no foreign identification documents were found, and some of the attackers had fake Indian papers, he added. Inspector Maria also said there were only 10 attackers in all, denying earlier suggestions by public officials that there were more actual attackers. However, it remains unclear whether the militants had at least some accomplices on the ground before the violence began on Wednesday night.
Some new details emerged Monday about the difficulties faced by the Indian police commandos who responded to the killings here last week. The attackers used grenades to booby trap some of the bodies in the two hotels where they struck, the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower and the Oberoi, so they would explode when they were moved, Inspector Maria said. It was not always clear, he added, whether the people were dead or just wounded. That tactic made fighting the attackers more difficult, and significantly delayed the cleanup after the violence ended, Inspector Maria said. The last militants were routed on Saturday morning, but the Taj was not returned to the control of its owners until Monday morning.
But those details seemed unlikely to blunt the rising public anger at the government’s handling of the attacks, which have been widely described here as India’s version of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
The ease with which the small band of attackers mowed down civilians in downtown Mumbai and then repelled police commandos for days in several different buildings, has exposed glaring weaknesses in India’s intelligence and enforcement abilities. Indian intelligence officials issued at least one warning about a possible attack on the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, but that was in September. Security was increased for a while and then relaxed, intelligence officials said. There were reports of many other unheeded warnings, but it was not clear how many were actually communicated.
On Monday, the rising public outcry pushed the chief minister of Maharashtra State, Vilasrao Deshmukh, a member of the governing Congress Party, to offer his resignation. Party leaders were still considering his offer Monday night. “I accept moral responsibility for the terror attacks,” he said at a news conference. Earlier in the day, his deputy, R.R. Patil, officially stepped down. The two gestures came a day after India’s highest-ranking domestic security official, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, resigned, saying he took responsibility for the failure to forestall or quickly contain the three-day killing spree. His successor as home minister, Paliniappan Chidambaram, the former finance chief, briefly addressed reporters on Monday, promising to respond vigorously to the terrorist threat. “This is the threat to the very idea of India, the very soul of India, the India that we know, the India that we love—namely a secular, plural, tolerant and open society,” he said. “I have no doubt in my mind that ultimately the idea of India will triumph.”
Also on Monday, mourners attended an emotional funeral for a Jewish couple who were murdered at Nariman House, a Jewish outreach center the terrorists took over during their bloody rampage. The couple’s orphaned two year-old son, Moshe Holtzberg, cried out for his parents, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, from Brooklyn, and his Israeli wife, Rivka Holtzberg, 28. The boy, carrying a small orange inflatable basketball, first cried “Dada” and then inconsolably “Imma,” which means Mama in Hebrew, as he accompanied his grieving grandparents and dignitaries, including Israel’s ambassador to India, Mark Sofer, at a synagogue memorial service. “The house they built here in Mumbai will live with them,” said Shimon Rosenberg, Rivka’s father, his voice breaking. “They were the mother and father of the Jewish community in Mumbai.”
Later in the day, thousands of Mumbai residents gathered on the seaside esplanade facing the Taj, where they stared sadly at the black smoke marks marring the building’s stately Victorian architecture. Some chanted “long live India!” and held up banners proclaiming their defiance. Others placed candles and flowers on makeshift memorials to the dead. “I never knew what terrorism was as a kid,” said Mahesh Bhatt, a 36-year-old former Indian Navy officer who now works for a shipping company. “Now, it’s become part of our lives. We can’t continue like this. Something must be done.”
(Ruth Fremson/New York Times)