India remembers Mumbai mayhem after one year
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Exactly a year after 10 terrorists held Mumbai hostage for nearly 60 hours, mercilessly killing over 170 people including foreigners, India Thursday remembered those who fell prey to the militants' bullets.
The nation also paid rich tributes to all those martyrs who gave up their lives to ensure that others could live to tell their tales and to the bravery of those who survived last November's terror attacks on Mumbai's prominent landmarks: Hotel Taj, Leopold Cafe, Cama Hospital, Oberoi Trident, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Nariman House.
Mumbai held a slew of events to mark the event as well as unveiled new measures to tackle terror, particularly a special parade of the Force One -- the newly commissioned elite force of the western state of Maharashtra which was constituted after the attacks.
The Force One commandos marched early this morning from Hotel Trident to Girgaum Chowpatty displaying its new and sophisticated weapons procured post Nov. 26. The Force One team is expected to be a part of the initial response team expected to respond to any terror strike.
Besides this, a massive blood donation drive, initiated by the Railways, was organized at Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus which was the first target of the terrorists last year and saw the maximum carnage with the deaths of 52 people.
In the morning, Mumbai Police held a peace flag march in a show of strength from Air India building, passing Nariman Point to Girgaum Chowpatty.
The march also included Force One, the Quick Response Team and armored vehicles.
In his message to the country, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is on a state visit to the United States, reiterated that the government "will not rest till the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks have been brought to justice".
"We have taken up matter with the Government of Pakistan with all the force at our command. We expect masterminds of these attacks and their supporters to be tried and punished," he said.
The Indian Prime Minister said that he shared the grief of people who lost their relatives.
"This is a day of remembrance and paying homage to innocent civilians and brave men in uniform, who lost their lives in one of the worst terror attacks India has seen. Nov. 26 was an attack to destabilize India's secular polity. The supreme sacrifice will not go in vain," he said in his message.
Meanwhile, a survey has been carried out on "Is Mumbai safer after Nov. 26? Is the country now prepared to handle a terror attack of a similar scale", the results of which have been made public.
In the survey, conducted across major cities, 54 percent of the respondents said that the central government has been effective in dealing with the threat of terrorism, while 42 percent responded in the negative and four percent were undecided.
Amidst calls for a higher level of security a year after militants laid siege to Mumbai, 54 percent of the respondents said the central government is now capable of stopping a similar attack. While 40 percent believed the country's security is no better than what it was on Nov. 26 last year, six percent left it undecided.
Summed up the survey: "The challenges Mumbai faces in preventing militant attacks are now echoed in other cities of India, which are often crippled by an ill-equipped police force and a bureaucracy unable to respond quickly to the new threats. But the attacks on Mumbai, modernization became the buzzword for the police force."
Apart from the survey, the one issue the whole nation agrees on is that Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only terrorist captured alive, should be hanged.
In Mumbai, 250 witnesses have already given evidence against Kasab who has been charged with 302 crimes, including waging war against the state.
"I think we will have a sentence passed within two to three months. We have clinching evidence and I will be seeking the death penalty," Indian Public Prosecutor Ujwal Nigam told media.
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