The Siege: 68 Hours Inside the Taj Hotel (46 page)

We accessed thousands of unpublished court documents from the trial of Ajmal Kasab, including his multiple interrogations. Many of these accounts were conflicting, but we incorporated them into our timeline, the affidavits amplifying the statements given to us. Similarly, police contacts allowed us to read many thousands of pages from Crime Branch evidence books, amassed during the criminal inquiry into 26/11, including all of the witness statements and forensic evidence reports. We also accessed the confidential annexes submitted to the Pradhan Commission, as well as appraisals by foreign intelligence services that lent technological assistance to India during the assault and forensic services afterwards. We studied the FBI analysis provided to investigators in Mumbai and the more complex intelligence dossier shared with domestic and foreign intelligence in New Delhi.

Inevitably, some of these reconstructed events will jar with individual memories that placed a person somewhere else, at a different time, as might some of the dialogue, although we have tried to show every re-created scene to as many parties as possible to ensure accuracy. A few quotations have been compared to or directly extracted from interviews survivors gave at the time to cable news channels and newspapers, so as to capture the authenticity of that moment – the thoughts they had back then, rather than with the benefit of hindsight.

During the research for this book we viewed thousands of photographic stills of the attacks, using newspaper libraries in India and the UK, and hundreds of hours of TV footage from most of the Indian and international cable news channels. Among the most dramatic accounts was
Terror in Mumbai
, the award-winning film made by the British director Dan Reed that was broadcast around the world. We also translated Sachin Waze’s written account of the attacks,
Jinkun Harleli Ladhai
(
A Battle Won and Then Lost
) from its original Marathi. As Waze is a retired police officer and encounter specialist and he interviewed a great number of police officers who were still serving, his work provides an interesting perspective from within the force, albeit different from ours in many instances. The book
26/11 Mumbai Attacked
, edited by Harinder Baweja, published in 2009, is an early take on the attacks, but contains some solid forensic reporting, especially by Ashish Khetan, investigations editor for
Tehelka
magazine, who examined the intelligence trail that foretold of the attacks and the security briefings ignored by the Taj and other Mumbai institutions. For a broader view on the historic problems facing the Mumbai police force it is also worth reading, as we did,
The Untouchables
, Srinivasan Jain’s overview first published in
Open
magazine.

The sections that relate to Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Toiba and the country’s security apparatus are the culmination of eighteen years’ work as foreign correspondents, writers and filmmakers in the Islamic Republic, in which we have amassed a large number of contacts working in counter-terrorism and de-radicalization, and
students of sectarianism in its multiple guises. For
The Siege
we spent many months in Pakistan, working with civil servants, retired intelligence officials, diplomats, serving and retired soldiers, and civilian investigators, as well as Pakistani academics and journalists. A group of researchers continued on our behalf when we left. On several occasions, they were asked to leave a village or town by men claiming to be intelligence agents. The ISI remains extremely sensitive about the issue and is keen for it not to be probed too deeply.

We reached out to dozens of serving and former Lashkar cadres, including most of the leadership of the various factions (welfare, religious, military), visiting some of their training and education centres in Muzaffarabad and Muridke. This took many months to broker, some of it done via the offices of retired intelligence officials. We also interviewed key members of and office holders within other Sunni sectarian groups that have closely observed Lashkar and know this world, including Sipah-e-Sahaba, renamed Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat in 2002, and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Both organizations have been outlawed as terrorist outfits in Pakistan and the US, making these meetings drawn out and sensitive but extremely useful when they eventually came off. All of these interviews provided the clearest thoughts on the context for Operation Bombay, the growing suspicions about David Headley within Lashkar – that eventually concluded he was ‘a useful US spy’ – and the aftermath.

Numerous insights were given by the FIA, whose inquiry did what it could, within the remit set. FIA agents, serving and retired, from all over the country, many of whom have a long history of analysing terror, provided invaluable commentary on Lashkar’s recruiting strategy and procurement operation. A foreign intelligence service showed us the evidence pack assembled by the FIA and we had access to its complete prosecution dossier for thirteen named offenders, most of them intermediaries in the final operation. We also read the interrogation reports for those on trial.

On Lashkar, we learned much picking through the three volumes of
Ham Ma’en Lashkar-e-Taiba Ki
(
We, the Mothers of Lashkar-e-Taiba
), which runs to more than 1,000 pages, and was written by Umm-e-Hammad,
the head of Lashkar’s women’s section, allegedly the mother of two Lashkar cadres who died in combat. It contains fascinating insights into the formation of the outfit and its philosophy, by charting the lives and deaths of 184 ‘martyrs’. An exceptional review of this work, by C. M. Naim, was published by
Outlook
magazine on 15 December 2008. In April 2013, the Combating Terror Center, at West Point, published
The Fighters of Lashkar-e-Taiba: Recruitment, Training, Deployment and Death.
It analysed the paths of 900 fighters, taking material from Lashkar’s Urdu publications, with the aim of spotlighting the outfit’s methodology given the ‘broader international consciousness’ about it after 26/11. It is statistically interesting but quite distant from the essence of Lashkar. Finally, Steven Tankel’s
Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba
, is a good attempt at charting the rise of Lashkar and the 26/11 attacks, which contains some interesting translations of Lashkar’s own material.

We learned much from parallel inquiries into Lashkar run in the UK, France, Germany, Australia and the US, all of which were especially helpful in describing the role of Sajid Mir, Lashkar’s deputy head of foreign operations, and David Headley, painting a compelling picture of the latter as a DEA provocateur and a US intelligence source/informer. These accounts by credible agencies and veteran observers, with clearances to access classified material, all come down on the side of Headley being tolerated by elements within the US intelligence community, as he promised, tantalizingly, to lead investigators ever closer to arresting Osama bin Laden. The US intelligence community itself is less eager to describe Headley as anything other than a terrorist, with the CIA and FBI declining to comment on the record. Headley’s American relatives gave us their own opinions. David Headley’s own account of events comes primarily from his FBI and Indian intelligence interrogations.

Jean-Louis Bruguière, the former Vice-President of the Tribunal de Grande Instance, in Paris, one of France’s leading investigative magistrates who dealt with counter-terrorism, provided a clear view of the operation to track Sajid Mir and what that revealed
about Lashkar’s attempts to transform itself into a global brand similar to Al-Qaeda. In turn, the best published work done on Headley to date is by Sebastian Rotella, for
ProPublica
and PBS, who described forensically, and even-handedly, Headley’s rise and fall. Rotella has written a useful e-book too,
Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks: The Untold Story
, while Bruce Riedel’s
Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of Global Jihad
is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the relationship between the Pakistan deep state and jihad.

Some in the Mumbai police force helped considerably, allowing us access to some of the Control Room logs, evidence books and analyses, which we married with what was secured using right-to-information legislation by Vinita Kamte, the widow of the slain police officer Hemant Kamte. Vinita and her family have struggled to pin down an accurate picture of the killings in Rang Bhavan Lane, and have worked doggedly to draw out detail from officers who it seems have done what they can to fog events. These logs give a compelling snapshot of the chaos that overwhelmed the force. The full interrogation video and transcript prepared at Nair Hospital, where Kasab was first questioned after being captured, were also invaluable.

The stories from within the Taj were painstakingly drawn from Taj staffers and their families, as well as guests and diners. Without them, and especially the Taj chefs and managers, we would never have understood the sacrifices they made in the hours before any rescue took shape. Without doubt, the unarmed Taj security team, the Black Suits, as well as the hotel’s chefs and managers, saved hundreds of lives.

Acknowledgements

An enormous and heartfelt thank you to everyone at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai who took a risk in collaborating with us. In some cases they did this physically, walking us through Mumbai and the hotel. Others spent hours reliving the events from afar. Thanks especially to Amit Peshave, Mallika Jagad, Grand Executive Chef Hemant Oberoi and Sous-Chef Nitin Minocha, who patiently explained the internal workings of the vast Taj machine so that we could understand the minutiae of its processes. We hope we have created some kind of consensus and also a testament to the staff who survived and those who succumbed. Thanks also to Florence Martis and family for opening up the life of the remarkable Faustine Martis.

Thanks to Nikhila Palat, Director of PR at the Taj, for being patient, even when the hotel’s goals differed from ours. Also to Deepa Misra Harris, Senior Vice-President of sales and marketing. Thanks to Padmini Mirchandani, publisher at Pictor, for
The Taj on Apollo Bunder
, which brilliantly depicted the history of the hotel, including a chapter on the attacks. We also need to thank Charles Allen, who wrote it, along with Sharada Dwivedi, Mumbai’s
prima
historian. There are many others inside the hotel who have asked not to be named. Thanks to all of you for talking to us.

Dozens of soldiers and police officers who spoke to us also do not want to be named, and we are very grateful to them.

Thanks to Rakesh Maria for giving us his time. Particular thanks must go to Vishwas Nangre Patil and Rajvardhan Sinha for giving us detailed accounts of the police’s best attempts at detecting the attacks and then containing them. Deven Bharti was key to our understanding of the ending of the siege and the electronic monitoring of Lashkar’s handlers. Deepak Dhole and several others from
the stations that surrounded the Taj were patient with us, while officials in state and national domestic intelligence took risks in expanding on the trail of warnings, explaining, frankly, the electronic monitoring operation during the days of terror. One Intelligence Bureau stalwart has moved into a different area of public service, while the other continues to serve. Two more are retired and took considerable risks in coming forward. Thank you, Brigadier Govind Singh Sisodia and family, for walking us through many aspects of the National Security Guard (NSG) operation. Thanks also to J. K. Dutt, whose overview of the NSG mobilization and modernization was critical.

Thank you to the counter-terrorism practitioners and experts in Britain (Scotland Yard and the Foreign Office), in France, and especially the US, where we broke much new ground thanks to the enthusiasm of retired operatives who worked for the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the FBI and CIA. Also a huge thank you to those members of David Headley’s family who took a chance to open up to us about their ‘sociopath’ relative, with his split personality; a heavy weight for any family to bear. Thanks to Jean-Louis Bruguière for his insight and detailed account of the Sajid Mir operations in France and beyond. Thanks too to Marc Sageman, Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute who was the CIA’s foremost Al-Qaeda expert. He was brought in as an expert witness during the trial of Tahawwur Rana, and shared with us his knowledge in so many areas.

Thank you to Sachin Waze (and family) for a 1 a.m. dinner in Thane and much banter afterwards over email.

Special thanks go to Vinita Kamte, the widow of Additional Commissioner East Ashok Kamte, and family, who have risked much to try and understand the circumstances surrounding the Rang Bhavan Lane shootings. Vinita Kamte’s book,
To the Last Bullet
, written with journalist Vinita Deshmukh, is a bold epitaph for her ‘braveheart’. They have recently forced a government probe into the alleged tampering with police call log records for 26/11.

Thanks to Suketu Mehta and Jeet Thayil for writing
Maximum City
and
Narcopolis
, two of the best contemporary works on Mumbai. Thanks to Sheela Bhatt, managing editor at Rediff, who has continually given advice, contacts, friendship and provided great ‘Guj’ food. Also to Hussain Zaidi, the crime reporter, who knows Thayil’s Brown Crows better than anyone. Zaidi was a great counsellor and a good man to chow down with at midnight in Bandra. Thank you also to his family for the idli and samba, and for his book
Headley and I
, which gives a colourful and insightful account of the bizarre relationship that blossomed between David Headley and Rahul Bhatt, the Bollywood actor and bodybuilder. Ashish Khetan did not help us, but has wrestled long and hard with differences between the public and private versions of 26/11. Thank you, Meenal Baghel, editor-in-chief of the
Mumbai Mirror
, who is also an accomplished writer. Her powerful
Death in Mumbai
, an account of a shocking Bollywood murder, was the first of its kind of crime writing in the city. Thank you to the photographer Ian Pereira for taking such a great portrait of the chefs at the Taj and to Harinder Baweja for editing
26/11 Mumbai Attacked
, which, as an early take on those days, was remarkably shipshape.