New Delhi: The 1993 bombings, Malegaon bomb blasts or 2003 car bombings – Mumbai is, unfortunately, not a stranger to terror attacks. But the evening of November 26, 2008, brought the ‘maximum city’ to a halt for three consecutive days. The open fire and blasts at prominent spots in south Mumbai, countless deaths at the hands of terrorists and martyrs from the defence forces – there are several stories that have lived on beyond those three days.  

After reaching home the next morning, the very thought that there are terrorists in my city without any information on their count was scary — Rohit Khilnani

I was having dinner with my colleague at Jai Hind Café, Lower Parel. I was working with CNN-IBN at the time. At about 9:30 in the evening, she being a news reporter started getting messages about a gang war in South Bombay. Everybody kept saying gang war. She immediately rushed towards Colaba with the crew, meanwhile the bureau chief asked me to cover Oberoi Trident, informing me about a shootout there as well. There was absolutely no clarity on what was happening. It took some time to understand that this was much more than a gang war. Someone said there was a blast in a taxi, there were people being killed in Andheri and so many other places. Obviously, a gang war can’t happen at so many places at the same time. It was very clear then that this was an attack. Nobody was prepared for this kind of magnitude.

Staying in Bombay, I didn’t know what a bullet sounds like. Even though I have covered reportage from Zaveri Bazaar blast to Mahim Train blast, but I had never seen anything like this before.

When Kasab’s car passed by, I was right there and in fact, a lot of us followed them along with a cop’s car. The car was stopped at New Yorker’s, they beat him up with sticks and initially thought that he was dead. We were in the front too, we were not thinking, a bullet could have come from any direction but I was so engrossed in reporting this massacre. Of course, much later I realised that it’s important to be trained to handle such situations, not like it’s given even now. I don’t think a lot of journalists out there know how to combat or cover something like 26/11.

The night passed without me thinking for a second. What was more horrific were the post-attack stories. After reaching home the next morning, the very thought that there are alive terrorists in my city without any information on their count was scary.

There was no advisory from a central body to anyone. The security, NSG, policemen, media – everyone was clueless.

I was outside Trident and could see people waving from the windows, a few flashing their mobile phones. They were in a panic and as much as we would have liked to help, there really was no way out. I felt helpless. Many stories also came to light after availing of the CCTV footage of the hotels. I have never seen anything as scary as that in my life. In the CCTV coverage, I saw people walking in the corridor and terrorists at the other end, I literally felt like warning them; it’s horrible.

Everything is still fresh in my mind. One major impact is that I can never enjoy a 5-star experience, my mind keeps planning escape theories and checking for exit gates while I eat. I have visited Taj after that and I stood there, looked around and I could just shut my eyes, relive the entire memory all over again. It will never go.

There was no space to accommodate more bodies; there were limitations on the staff available; there were innumerable people waiting to identify the dead — Sukanya Shantha

I remember I was with The Indian Express at the time and covering Malegaon blast story then and had left for home late that night. I usually would take a train, either from Victoria Terminal or CST, but that particular day I had to meet a friend, so I took a cab. I had just reached home when I heard the news. I had covered blasts before so I had an idea about that kind of coverage but this was one of its kind, more like a live attack where men were moving around the city with guns, looking to just kill. We, as reporters, were maturing as and when this was happening. It was on the job learning of sorts. Most of us had no idea how we should be conducting ourselves because we have always stayed in a peace prone area... so we were definitely making mistakes. I was running between Hilton, Nariman House, and the Taj.

There was a director wanting to do recce for his movie, getting access through ministers, no one realising that they were actually tampering the evidence. My own photographer colleagues were inside these places capturing, but when I look back now, it doesn’t seem very intelligent. I am sure today everyone would do things very differently, though there are no protocols in place even now.

There was a spectrum of people getting affected by 26/11. There were grass root level people in CST  and high-end people at the 5-stars. Though I was looking to cover more of CST, I was constantly asked to move to get stories of foreign delegates and officers. That was really draining.

Actually, the enormity of this was overwhelming. Suddenly being at JJ hospital’s morgue, that’s something which has had an impact on me. There was no count of the dead bodies coming in and I didn’t know when would it stop. Eventually, there was no space to accommodate more bodies; there were limitations on the staff available; there were innumerable people waiting to identify the dead. We actually had to get into people’s emotional space to get stories. I am ridiculously bad at it. I still can’t bring myself together to do such personal stories. At that moment, there was no time to make any human connection, it was just the number and stories which needed to be put out. While I do understand that it was a need of an hour, but no amount of sincerity or understanding was enough for that moment so devastating. That had an impact on me for the longest time. It was a discomfiting feeling. Even as I talk about it now, I feel uncomfortable.

The moment between 11:50 pm to 12 am, I still do not remember those ten minutes of my life — Mayank Bhagwat

It was around 9:40 pm that everybody got to know that CST station had been attacked. I was on my way back home and in the middle of the journey, I got a call from the office that there is something happening on the town side [for the uninitiated, south Mumbai is often referred to as town] which seems different from a normal shoot out.  I was working with Star News at the time [known as ABP News now]. I got down from the train and called up a cop. “This is not a normal underworld firing,” those were his words. 

CST is close to the JJ flyover. When I reached the flyover, I met Hemant Karkare, the then ATS chief, and K.P. Raghuvanshi who was also there. We headed towards Metro cinema via the route which goes through Cama Hospital. When I reached Metro cinema, I roughly remember that around 11:50 pm, we saw a police car approaching in our direction. Out of nowhere, shots were being fired from the car. It is then we realised that the car has been hijacked – it was probably Ismail or Kasab who initiated the firing but within a spur of the moment, the constable Arun Chitte, standing next to me collapsed in my lap and died.

Just a few seconds ago, he was asking all journalists and photographers to move back and the next moment, he was dead. I had to drag him, lifted him with the help of people around to send him to the hospital. Whether it was trauma or shock, I could not comprehend what had just happened. I barely survived because the person standing next to me, say by around two to three inches, died. I remember a journalist friend of mine shook me for a minute and a half saying, “Tu kaha chala gaya (Come on, where did you go? Get up!)”. That is when I realised something major is happening. I gathered myself and informed my office that the police car had been hijacked by the terrorists. For that brief part of 10 minutes, I still do not remember. I tried recalling the incident a lot but could not. 

Post that indiscriminate firing incident, the second thing I remember was that I called up my managing editor in Delhi to inform that Karkare Sir had died. My boss, who knew Karkare quite well,  frantically told me, “What are you saying! This cannot happen. Crosscheck the information and get back to me. I cannot run this information. He is ATS chief, how can you just say he has died?” I told him that one of my constable friends is right there at the point and sitting right next to Karkare’s body. This was another major incident that my bosses were not ready to accept that Karkare had died, or Vijay Salaskar had died. Everybody was in shock. Because of the events which took place from 11:50 pm to 12:30 am, by 12:40 am or 1 am, we had information that all three senior police officers had died in cross-firing. 

The siege went on for about 59 hours and we went to cover the incident for 72 hours on the trot. From there on, I moved to the Oberoi hotel. From that moment till the siege ended till the last terrorist was killed, I was stationed outside the hotel. The terrorists fired in our direction but since we were at a safer distance, we managed to survive. It was not the scariest moment. I still remember everything distinctly except what conspired between 11:50 pm to 12 am, those 10 minutes were the most crucial. It was a situation of life and death. It could have been me. 

Post 26/11, it has not impacted me as much as it has taken a toll on my mother. She did not know what I had gone through and on 28th morning, she saw my picture in blood-stained clothes on the front page of Maharashtra Times. She was completely shattered. From that day till today, irrespective of where I am, she gets worried if she doesn’t get a call from me post 9 pm. 

For a long time, I felt that every place of my childhood was tainted — Yogita Limaye

I was working with CNN-IBN at the time and was at a late shift that night when I got a call about some kind of shooting in South Mumbai. I grew up in south Mumbai, in Colaba, which is opposite the place where the gunmen came in. It was quite strange as it wasn’t the 80s age of mafias. I proceeded and was at JJ flyover when I got the news about a similar incident in CST. When I went to check on things there, the roads looked completely cleared. There were no vehicles, so we stayed a bit resilient too. There is another entry/exit to CST, where I saw a lot of people huddled together next to giant circular pillars there. I asked them about the shooting and they started narrating that there are men dressed in black with huge backpacks and big guns. As I was processing the information, I actually started hearing gunshots – the first time in my life. It was alarming and we had realised that this was big.

There was no WhatsApp or internet to know about any news about other places. To be honest, I wasn’t thinking much, it was all more of a reaction to the situation. It was these same CST terrorists, who crossed over the footbridge, went into the lane and then entered Cama Hospital. While all this was happening, I was still phoning into my channel. I could hear grenades going off and at the same time, I got a text from a childhood friend who lives next to Nariman House, telling me about another big explosion in her area. Somebody else texted me about the taxi blowing off in the suburbs. That was the point where I was in disbelief, that the city is under attack. We still didn’t know how many terrorists were out there. The putting together of math about how many- where exactly- was much later, no one could put a finger on anything precisely. Mumbai Police too took a pretty big hit that day.

I think when the news of Hemant Karkare, the chief of ATS being killed broke out, was when it became graver. He was someone who held regular press conferences and most of us knew him. He being dead came as a shocker. I was stationed outside The Taj from there on and the sight was disturbing. There were still gunmen inside the building and people were being evacuated through fire escapes.

Bombay has always held my favourite childhood memories. Whenever our extended families would visit, we would go to Elephanta island, taking a ferry from Gateway of India and the view of this beautiful building, Taj from the ferry was very much part of growing up. The dome of Taj burning, the Bombay icon, was just mind-boggling. There were moments when I sat in Gateway of India complex clinched my eyes and hoped that all of it was a bad dream. Not just Taj, it was also Leopold café where I subsequently covered a lot of stories; the Nariman house, close to my best friend’s house, Colaba Causeway, which was a haunt to buy junk jewellery with my sister. For a long time, I felt that every place of my childhood was tainted. Obviously, time heals it but for a few years, it had a huge impact.

I still think of people I had covered stories of. The small boy who was rescued from The Taj, I wonder how grown up he would be now.

Those ten men managed to shut down an entire city- it was bizarre — Meena Menon

The story broke before 10 pm when I was with a colleague at my bureau. I was working with The Hindu at the time. We were packing up when she got a call reporting firing at Leopold Café. This was 2008, so there were fewer chances of gang wars like the 90s. Suddenly, I got a call from a friend talking about a shootout in CST. No one had any information. I remember calling K.L. Prasad, then Jt. Commissioner (L&O) who couldn’t talk much about the situation.

I took a cab, planning to drop my colleague at Colaba and continuing to CST. Right at Regal Circle, we saw a bunch of Taj employees standing, that’s when I knew that something was terribly wrong. It was eerily quiet.  Till then, I knew only about Leopold, unaware of the Taj situation. I reached CST but wasn’t allowed inside. There were sounds of firing and people were crossing the road to ask for help. Their families were stuck inside the terminus...That’s when I got an inkling of the situation.

Soon Mr. K.P. Raghuvanshi, Additional DGP, in-charge of ATS drove up and was heading for the terminus but he refused to talk to the by then large media contingent which was trying to make sense of the situation. All the shops were shut and the place was dark.. we heard of firing at Metro cinema and some journalists were hurt. After a while, we saw Ashok Kamte, Additional Commissioner of Mumbai Police,  just before he was shot dead.

We managed to get some food and water before walking towards the Taj Mahal hotel, briefly stopping at a friend's office.. that’s when we saw TV and decided to head for the Taj.. there was chaos; people were trying to escape through windows, rappelling down bedsheets tied together and the tense hotel staff was helping them into cars. The iconic pink dome was on fire and it kind of exploded before our eyes. I had covered the post-Babri masjid demolition riots, the serial train blasts, and many such events but no one was prepared for this kind of attack when a few terrorists could hold a city to ransom.  Later when I met survivors, they said at CST they had no idea it was firing. One lady described it as ‘chana’ falling on the ground. That’s a surprise element of a terror attack. We were eye-witnesses to something unprecedented. Those ten men managed to shut down an entire city- it was bizarre.

The chief minister had a presser...first time in my life I was attending a press conference at 4 in the morning. Later, we walked to the Oberoi where we could see men moving around behind the brightly lit windows which someone said were the terrorists. The head of the hotel security who was standing on Marine drive said that the terrorists came in a taxi, just walked in and started shooting randomly. People had run down fire escapes ..and the rest of the city slept while this drama unfolded. Morning joggers were on Marine drive as usual.

For a week we spent all day at various sites reporting and figuring out stories.. so many things were reconstructed later like the Chabad house firing, the Cama hospital attack...even the CST firing.

The attack had a deep impact not only on the security situation but also on the traumatised survivors and the city. We stayed with the story for a long time, interviewing families of survivors and reconstructing the events of those three days. The most difficult part for people was, expectedly, how to deal with the loss. How do people go back to everyday life after something like this? As a reporter, I have seen a lot of violence and panic unfold, but we had to step back from it as writers so that we can report with a level head. The senseless violence towards people who had no reason to be killed stays with you as also the terror of the situation.

 One thing which could be done differently...  is to draw clear lines while covering such events. 24x7 media coverage can be counter-productive. We definitely need to respect the sanctity of the dead and need to explore how to cover such critical situations without adding to the problem. It can make the difference between life and death.

There were times when I just wanted to keep my mic aside and sit down and kind of have a small meltdown — Shai Venkatraman

I was working with NDTV at the time and had an early shift that day so I was home when I remember, there were some strange messages popping up in the office group about shooting at Leopold, etc. After a while, looking at the messages I felt it was unusual for Mumbai so I decided to head out for work. By the time I reached Bombay Hospital, we realised the whole incident was so much bigger. There was chaos all around – bodies coming in, people all around were confused and hysterical. So much was happening at the same time but nobody knew for certain what was happening. The attackers were on the loose.

I was at the hospital when the police officers – Vijay Salaskar, Ashok Kamte, and Hemant Karkare were brought in. I knew some of them. These were the people I had worked with several times over the past few years. It was one of the hardest stories I covered. There were times when I just wanted to keep my mic aside and sit down and kind of have a meltdown. Not just me, even my cameraperson. We were just shaken by what we witnessed.

I would call it one of the most difficult things I ever had to do. But then, of course, you gather yourself. As the scale and enormity of it went up, it turned out to be harder and harder. There was just chaos all around, there was no news, no control of media, people could go wherever. At some point, we realised we had to be very responsible about what we are putting out there because we got the information that the coverage was being watched and perhaps being used to help the terrorists on loose.

Everyone was caught off guard. Now when I think of it, I wouldn’t call it traumatic but it left me quite shaken. There was a sense of panic and vulnerability among people. Everyone talks about how the city is sort of invincible and how every time it falls, it dusts off its knees and gets on with life. But this was different. Everyone felt quite vulnerable.

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