Anger in Mumbai one week after attacks

4 Dec 2008, 6:54 am   -   Source: AAP
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Mumbai has taken stock of the deadly terror attacks that struck the city a week ago, as anguish for the dead and injured turned to anger.

Mumbai has taken stock of the deadly terror attacks that struck the city a week ago, as anguish for the dead and injured turned to anger at the authorities and tensions rose with Pakistan.

On Wednesday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to remember the 188 people who died and the more than 300 others who were injured during the 60-hour orgy of violence that saw two luxury hotels and a number of other sites targeted.

But they directed much of their anger towards India's political leaders and police, accusing them of not doing enough to protect the public, and of not heeding foreign intelligence warnings that an attack was imminent.

"We've come to show our solidarity against the apathy of the government and we want the government to change to be proactive and not lazy," said 64-year-old Abiti Phoksey, who runs an upholstery business.

"They all have a duty to the nation," she told AFP.

Like many, Phoksey said she had never taken part in a public demonstration before. Some in the throng shouted "We want justice" and "Enough is enough" while there was anger directed at Pakistan, accused of being behind the strike.

The non-party-political protest, organised by text message and as India's "Maximum City" slowly gets back to normal, also saw calls for civil disobedience and non-payment of taxes until action was taken.

Political heads have already rolled in India in the wake of the attacks.

Home minister Shivraj Patil stepped down, saying he took "moral responsibility" for what happened. There have been a number of attacks claimed by Islamist extremists on his watch.

Indian television reported on Wednesday that Maharashtra state chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh's resignation had been accepted, although there was no immediate confirmation.

The strength of public grievance in India has been seen in the newspapers' letters pages and a C Fore/Hindustan survey published on Monday.

Some 87 per cent of people surveyed thought India was "soft on terrorism", with similar numbers agreeing the country needed tougher politicians and anti-terrorism laws.

A majority (86 per cent) thought the Mumbai attacks could have been prevented.

India was quick to point the finger at Pakistan as being behind the strikes, blaming the banned Islamist movement Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT) for training and equipping the 10 militants who stormed India's financial capital by boat.

The United States has also accused the LeT, which was blamed for the 2006 Mumbai train blasts that killed nearly 200 and the 2001 Indian parliament attack that brought nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

Pakistan has strongly denied the allegations, demanding concrete evidence from India to back up the claims.

As foreign intelligence agencies, including the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), joined their Indian counterparts in the probe, questions have been asked about how much India knew about the attacks and when.

"There has been a complete deficiency in local and police intelligence," said Ajai Sahni, executive director with the Institute of Conflict Management, a non-profit internal security group based in New Delhi.

"National intelligence is paper-thin, and despite repeated attacks, we have not learnt our lessons," he told AFP.

US media reports said Washington had warned India in October that hotels and businesses in Mumbai might be targeted by attackers coming from the sea.

City police chief Hassan Gafoor admitted on Tuesday that they had received warnings after the deadly truck bomb blast at the Marriott hotel in Islamabad on September 20, including that the Taj Mahal hotel could be a target.

The attacks have highlighted how ill-equipped, under-trained and under-manned the city's police and security apparatus is, as unarmed officers were powerless to tackle militants armed with sophisticated weaponry.

Indian police on Wednesday discovered and defused explosives at Mumbai's main railway station, left by the militants who struck the city last week.

"This is part of the same consignment which the terrorists had brought on Wednesday night when they were attacking and running helter-skelter, some of the material had been left behind," anti-terrorism chief KP Raghuvashi said.

The situation was "under control" and a bomb disposal unit had defused the devices, he told AFP.

The explosives were similar to others left by the militants elsewhere in the city during the attacks, reports said.

Indian television quoted police sources saying that "improvised explosive devices" were found among baggage that belonged to victims gunned down when Islamist militants launched attacks across the city last Wednesday night.

They were similar to devices found outside the Taj Mahal and Oberoi/Trident hotels and Leopold's cafe, three of the main targets of the attacks that left 188 people dead and around 300 injured.

They appeared to have been left "in the hope that they would go off later", the television quoted police as saying.

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