Taj Hotel owner to CNN: "We had warning"
The Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, India, temporarily increased security after being warned of a possible terrorist attack, the chairman of the company that owns the hotel said Saturday.
But Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata said those measures, which were eased shortly before this week's terror attacks, could not have prevented gunmen from entering the hotel. "If I look at what we had ... it could not have stopped what took place," Tata said in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria that will air Sunday.
"It's ironic that we did have such a warning, and we did have some measures," Tata said, without elaborating on the warning or when security measures were enacted. "People couldn't park their cars in the portico, where you had to go through a metal detector."
However, Tata said the attackers did not enter through the entrance that has a metal detector. Instead, they came in a back entrance, he said. "They knew what they were doing, and they did not go through the front. All of our arrangements are in the front," he said.
"They planned everything," he said of the attackers. "I believe the first thing they did, they shot a sniffer dog and his handler. They went through the kitchen."
A. Vaidyanathan, an economist who was a guest in the Taj when the attacks occurred, told The Hindu newspaper on Friday that he had noticed tight security at the hotel when he stayed there last month.
"First, when you enter the open parking, where the cars are parked, you had a very heavy metal frame; your baggage was searched," he said. "At the entrance of the foyer, there was another metal detector, and you were personally searched and so on."
However, for this latest trip, he said, he could walk right into the hotel without encountering the same measures
Tata said that not even the army or commandoes who ultimately took over the offensive were prepared for the level of organization and execution that the attackers seemed to have put into their plan.
"They seemed to know [the hotel] in the night or in the daytime," he said of the attackers. "They seemed to have planned their moves quite well, and there seem to have been a lot of pre-planning."
Tata said the attacks underscored the need for law enforcement to develop infrastructure for crisis management, even if it meant seeking outside expertise for training, equipment and strategic operations.
"We've been very complacent, because we've really not had this kind of terrorism inflicted upon us," he said. "We should not stand on ceremony to hold back. We should go to the best place possible to get expertise."
Tata was hopeful that the attacks would unite Indians behind a common goal of preventing a similar tragedy.
"Rather than have us succumb to this kind of terror, what it has done is given us a resolve that nobody can do this to us," he said.
"We're indignant, but we're not scared. If there's a view that this has pulled us down, I think it will unite the country that much more."Tata said he derived those sentiments from members of his staff, who have pledged to stand behind him and restore the Taj to its former grandeur.
"The general manager lost his whole family in one of the fires in the building," Tata said. "I went up to him today and I told him how sorry I was, and he said, 'Sir, we are going to beat this. We are going to build this Taj back into what it was. We're standing with you. We will not let this take us down.'"Tata added, "And that is the feeling that they have, and I have a feeling that that's pretty much echoed throughout the country."
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/29/india.hotel/index.html?e...
winn.. if they cannot check every vessel for the security of their damn country.. then might well have no navy itself. why spend money and do the work half way through..
the customs or airport security cannot say that since there r millions of ppl coming in everyday.. we cant check all of em.. thats not a solution..
we all know how it runs.. for all u know.. 2 officers were shot to make it look real and obvious that they tried...
Harsha: This is what I was talkin abt teh coast guard officers being killed.
Account from the captured terrorist:
"... the group left Karachi in one boat and upon reaching Gujarat they hoisted a white flag on their boat and were intercepted by two officers of the coast guard near Porbandar and while they were being questioned, one of the terrorists grappled with one of the officers, slit his throat and threw the body in the boat. The other officer was told to help the group reach Mumbai.
When they were four nautical miles away from Mumbai, there were three speedboats waiting for them where the other coastguard officer was killed. All the ammo was then shifted into these three speedboats. They reached Colaba jetty on Wednesday night and the ten men broke up into groups of two each. Four of these men went to the Taj Mahal hotel, two of them to the Trident hotel, two towards Nariman Point at Colaba and two of which Azam was one, moved to CST."
it would be ironic if that manager was among those who were killed knowing they have warnings and all... maybe he's referring to different word to describe it.
though this kinda stuff can't easily be avoided, coz even a country like us was a victim of this large scale terror, but again a little bit of information could save lives or minimize casualties... they should have not ignore such...
it such a pity that officials like him can easily put a word to describe it wherein families of victims may not even say a word...
Harsha: Mumbai is a port where hundreds of vessels, small n big come and go every single day. Not to mention all the fishermen. Also these guys are said to have hijacked a vessel(with proper papers n stuff) in the high seas, so what came in was a vessel with proper credentials. The coast guard can not really enter n search every single vessel before it docks. Also they are said to have killed at least 2 coast guard officers on their way in.
Yeah, even I do feel that BJP was better in handling this kinda stuff!
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"Kasab, the lone terrorist in police custody, said: "We wanted to blow up the Taj," and added that the terror mission was planned at least four months ago.He said that a detailed recce was undertaken four months ago by another group, which included taking satellite pictures of the hotels and various locations and preparation of detailed maps."
"The terrorists, he told his interrogators, booked rooms in the Taj where they kept their ammunition. They booked room 630 for four days using fake identity cards from Mauritius. Posing as Malaysian students, they had many visitors. The police are now trying to locate these visitors."
"Kasab also revealed names and addresses of at least five locals in the city who helped in facilitating the terror operation. These people are said to have provided shelter, escorted them around and passed information on police stations and check posts, besides prominent landmarks. "
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Colt: Theres a differance between hoax calls and intelligence gathered by the agencies from sources in key positions around the world . But I do agree with you that it would still have been difficult to stop them unless their exact plan was known.
Aw don't blame the navy... They were busy near somalia checking out thai fishing boats... poor sailors
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i just think its a failure on our navy's & coast guard's side..
I cant digest the fact that got in mumbai without the help of certain ppl from the navy n coast guard itself.. and actually some ppl had called the police when they saw them coming in speedboats.. but guess the police was late.. or wanted to be late..
The govt is doing nothin about it.. BJP was far better at least it was safe then.. lookin at the no. of attacks after this govt took over is saddenin.. these guys can just give some damn speeches and sitting back and filling their pockets..
looking at it.. they entered mumbai through colaba.. which is a disgrace to the navy... as thats their base.. now how is all this possible.. without the navy being involved themselves.. this is heights of corruption !!!
**Guys this is not to offend anyone.. but just my thoughts.. coz i cant find logic in the whole thing that the terrorists did it without the help of navy or coast guard..
colt - like I said already, I realise they probably wouldn't have been able to stop the attacks anyway. My surprise is with how the chairman sees the situation to be ironic.
Winn, Tallg, Britexpat, etc. How do we know for a fact how many false warnings/ hoax calls the Taj has had before and nothing ever happened. Besides, how much precaution/ security measures could they have put up to save themselves. Who wud have thought an act like this would be committed? Hell, who would be none the wiser to think this, or maybe they could have fired missiles from sea at all hotels which are in close proximity to it, what then?
Now I think it's easier said than done what could have been done and what should have been done, yadda yadda yadda. More so, once things get calmer, it will start the blame game and so on and so forth. But I do think Mumbai, if not India, has got some sort of a message from this.
On a seperate note, the US had sufficient warnings of 9/11 too, but how much did they do? Some months prior to 9/11 they even nabbed an Egyptian national (AQ) who entered the US with bomb making stuff and got it out from him that he had planned to blast the basement of the twin towers. But what did they do? They set him free in a few weeks or months!
As in the case of 9/11 and 7/7 ..
It is not straight forward. Terrorists have links to many places. Yesterday, I read that one of the terorists had allegedly been working as a chef in the hotel for six months... If this is true, then we have to ask how he escaped detection.. Was he from india, where was he trained etc etc..
The first thing is to take a breath, step back and analyze the who situation. Then take concrete steps to mitigate future attacks.
If this means "hitting" targets in other countries, then that will have to be done..
Brit: We can attend to a wake up call... more worrisome is the kind of paranoia, distrust and insecurity it will create among communities and countries.
The agency that gave the warning seems not to have had the authority to enforce the measures. They had to pass the information to state police then to ATS, then to the Hotel management. Talk about Bureaucracy !!
The questions are quite daunting...To what extent do you put in security measures?? How many scenarios do you get yourselves prepared for? How do you deal with people who come ready to die, who have no qualms about killing civilians? How much do you restrict the activities, movement and day-to-day life of the very people whom you are protecting?
I think offence indeed is the best defence, instead of shielding our own, we should go out n hit them wherever they are. Put them on their toes , keep em busy so that they cant plan anything. Sounds oversimplistic but I dont see an alternative.
I agree Winn, it's unlikely that they'd have stopped the attacks anyway, but his comment about it being ironic makes no sense what so ever!
I think someone posted that GT article in another thread yesterday.
TallG makes a valid point.. We had the same issue after 7/7 in the UK..
If the intelligensia have a credible warning, then all suitable measures must be taken to protect human lives..
This tragedy will be a wakeup cal for India, as it was for us.
sad
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CONFUSE ............ if you cannot convince!
Exactly my thoughts, Tallg. Its not IRONIC!
But to be fair to the hotel guys, no one -even in the intelligence circles- had anticipated an attack of this scale, planning and audacity. They are familiar with suicide bombings, car bombs n stuff but the scenario of a brazen attack like this might have never crossed their minds.
Sadly, people believe that these kinda things only happen to other people till the moment it happens in their life. The 'threat' is not real till it actually materialises.
Found the following article in ystday's Gulf Times.
Staff emerge as heroes in hotel sieges
MUMBAI: Prashant Mangeshikar could be dead if it had not been for an employee at the Taj Mahal Hotel. Mangeshkar, his wife and daughter were in the foyer of the 105-year-old hotel on Wednesday night when gunmen opened indiscriminate fire in one of a series of co-ordinated attacks in India’s financial capital.
Recovering from the initial shock and chaos, hotel staff shepherded the guests, including the Mangeshikar family, through the service section upstairs – only suddenly to come face to face with one of the gunmen.
“He looked young and did not speak to us. He just fired. We were in sort of a single file,” Mangeshikar, a 52-year-old gynaecologist, said. “The man in front of my wife shielded us. He was a maintenance section staff. He took the bullets.”
The tale of the unnamed staff member has echoed across Mumbai where, time after time, hotel workers have emerged as the people who shielded, hid or evacuated their guests from militants at the Taj and Trident/Oberoi hotels. Hotel workers in one case ushered guests into a conference room and then locked the doors to protect them from the militants. The guests were later rescued by the fire brigade.
Within seconds after Mangeshikar’s family was saved from the bullets, the guests made a dash for the hotel rooms to hide. Mangeshikar and a few others dragged the wounded hotel employee identified only as ‘Mr Rajan’ into one of the rooms.
“His intestine was a lump hanging from a gaping hole in his abdomen,” he said. “The bullet had entered him from close to the spine.” For the next 12 hours, Mangeshikar and other guests surrounded the wounded man trying to push back his intestines with bedsheets and stop the bleeding. He was finally evacuated, but it was not known if he survived.(!!)
“The hotel staff has been very, very brave,” Mangeshikar said. “Hats off to them.” Kanda Noriyaki, a chef at the hotel’s Japanese restaurant, led guests trembling and screaming with fear to safety.
Many evacuees from the hotel hailed the bravery of the staff. “Just imagine, they even served us food the first few hours,” said a hotel guest, who did not wish to be named. “Only when the kitchens became out of bounds did they express regret for not being able to serve us food.”
One person recounted how Taj staff stopped panicky guests from rushing into the lobby where militants could have shot them. “They were brilliant,” Bhisham Mansukhani told the Mail Today. “If they hadn’t kept their cool, many more lives would have been lost.”
Witnesses said many trainee chefs had been killed in the kitchen of the Taj. Mangeshikar said that, but for the courage of Rajan, his wife and daughter could have been dead.
"It's ironic that we did have such a warning"
wtf! It's not ironic. You had a warning that something was going to happen, and something did happen, and you didn't put enough measures in place to stop it.