Mumbai photographer: I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back

Belfast Telegraph ^ | 29 November 2008 | Jerome Taylor

[Leisler]

It is the photograph that has dominated the world's front pages, casting an astonishing light on the fresh-faced killers who brought terror to the heart of India's most vibrant city. Now it can be revealed how the astonishing picture came to be taken by a newspaper photographer who hid inside a train carriage as gunfire erupted all around him.

Sebastian D'Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, whose offices are just opposite the city's Chhatrapati Shivaji station, heard the gunfire erupt and ran towards the terminus. "I ran into the first carriage of one of the trains on the platform to try and get a shot but couldn't get a good angle, so I moved to the second carriage and waited for the gunmen to walk by," he said. "They were shooting from waist height and fired at anything that moved. I briefly had time to take a couple of frames using a telephoto lens. I think they saw me taking photographs but theydidn't seem to care."

The gunmen were terrifyingly professional, making sure at least one of them was able to fire their rifle while the other reloaded. By the time he managed to capture the killer on camera, Mr D'Souza had already seen two gunmen calmly stroll across the station concourse shooting both civilians and policemen, many of whom, he said, were armed but did not fire back. "I first saw the gunmen outside the station," Mr D'Souza said. "With their rucksacks and Western clothes they looked like backpackers, not terrorists, but they were very heavily armed and clearly knew how to use their rifles.

"Towards the station entrance, there are a number of bookshops and one of the bookstore owners was trying to close his shop," he recalled. "The gunmen opened fire and the shopkeeper fell down."

But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

As the gunmen fired at policemen taking cover across the street, Mr D'Souza realised a train was pulling into the station unaware of the horror within. "I couldn't believe it. We rushed to the platform and told everyone to head towards the back of the station. Those who were older and couldn't run, we told them to stay put."

The militants returned inside the station and headed towards a rear exit towards Chowpatty Beach. Mr D'Souza added: "I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."

[brushcop]

...in Columbine, there were people calling out on cell phones letting the outside world know approximately where the shooters were.

I had forgotten about that, talk about timely information! Pathetic effort, it was really bad. My son and his unit did many house to house searches for terrorist cells in Iraq over two deployments, were ambushed a number of times, each house was a complete puzzle, I don't know how they did it.

Yet yet Columbine SWAT had all the advantages, not only cell phones but someone should have been button holing the kids as they came out for info., every detail is important, lots of resources on the scene but they got to be utilized.

[Redbob]

"I doubt any local police force would stand up against what was basically a Special Op’s force."

Be nice if such "police" would tell you this BEFORE they took their first paycheck...

[Redbob]

"Waiting for cops to protect you is a sure path to an early grave."

Or are others have put it,
"When seconds count, the police are only minutes away!"

[Fred Nerks]

MUMBAI : Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Thursday assured Muslims that the Governmemnt would give them preference in police jobs.Nov 6, 2008

"A special officer from Muslim community would be appointed for the police recruitment so that the community people can get more scope in the police department," the Chief Minister said in the function of the Federation of All Minority Educational Organisation at Haj House here...

(bet they're thinking that one over carefully.)

[ConservativeCompendium.net]

what was basically a Special Op’s force.

Where'd you get this from?

My understanding is that they were 15 20-something year olds that were split up into teams of 2. Their training was at 2nd class terror training camps in pak.

You have other information that they were the equivalent of Green Beret's/Navy Seals, I'd really like if you'd point me to the links to verify that assertion.

If the cops were too buffalo'd to take out a team of two, then they shouldn't have been drawing paychecks in the first place.

If there's no difference between a cop and a civilian, why bother to have cops?

[Leisler]

Thanks. Good read.

We can only guess as to whether it works for Marshall, or not. Different Army, different war. Also, all very subjective and in this topic or others, I'm wondering.

How could you get better numbers for this. If you have immediate after action reports, won't most everyone say they fired, even if they didn't? Maybe technology will come through and individual weapons will have gun cameras like the fighter pilots. Maybe a recorded hit will be rewarded and we will have ace soldiers.

[Leisler]

Police as a jobs program. You can kind of get a hint why other than showing up for a paycheck, these guys weren't going to do anything.

[Paladin2]

"I survived three key Engineering school classes taught by a triumvirate of Indian profs"<

Ohmagow sign tetha. Once you get that, all is fine.

[Leisler]

These guys had stones. Working in twos, being so distant not to be able to support each other, showing up, doing this task.

Besides their fair skills, they had their heads locked on to push to their objectives and hang tough.

I don’t know what motivated them. They must of come out of a special hate farm, something akin to the SS.

[Fishrrman]

“What the Indian cops came against was a trained military unit. I doubt most of them had the training to know how to respond.
Most cops in the US also don’t have the training. thats why they are called cops and not soldiers.”

Your point is well taken, but I’ll play the devil’s advocate here.

In that case, wouldn’t we be better off having a “national internal security force” that _did_ have “the training”?

- John

[ConservativeCompendium.net]

These guys had stones.

LOL. There's a VAST difference between being good and your opponent being bad. In this case the perps weren't good. The police were just so abysmally bad.

[justa-hairyape]

You are wrong about the armor issue, though. With the introduction of heavy plate armor, crossbows became obsolete against heavy Western cavalry. Plate armor was *tested* and “proofed” using crossbows with AP quarrels at point blank range.

Yes, eventually armor progressed technically by the end of the crusades and after that, but the Pope had still stated what he earlier stated during the start of the crusades. Islam did not use the crossbow much. The Western world had Knights while the eastern world had Cataphracts. During the early to mid crusades the Cataphract armor was superior to that of the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitalier. Just look at any drawing of those Knights and compare it to any drawing of the Cataphracts from that time period. The Eastern world had more advanced armor during that time because Islam had conquered and assimilated a more advanced Eastern Rome as compared to the Germanic tribes which had conquered a less advanced Western Rome. While the Germanic tribes assimilated Rome earlier, it took hundreds of years to advance out of the dark ages by converting to Christianity. The Middle East also adopted the military advances of the far east at that time, before Western Europe (gunpowder for example). Eventually however the Mongols arrived and made the heavily armored knights and cataphracts relatively worthless. Even with their most advanced armor.

[Spktyr]

Yeah - armor doesn't help much when you're up against a people that grow up on horseback and are horse-archers of such skill that they can target and hit a helm slit. Add to that the fact that they were the first army to use what we'd recognize today as "modern" tactics and strategy and you can see why they went through almost all the Islamic and European armies that stood before them like a hot sword through butter.

Imagine if you will, a group of Islamic or European cavalry of the 13th or early 14th century. A band of small men on ponies gallops into range, looses some arrows at this force and then gallops away with the other force in hot pursuit.

Now, keep in mind that cavalry of the era tended to attack "on line", i.e., side by side abreast, in a somewhat disorganized charge. After the initial charge, it devolves into a swirling melee of men and horses - but pretty much it's all or nothing at once with such tactics. Roman cavalry tactics weren't that much better.

So, the Christians or Islamics crest a hill, and this is what they see on the other side:

The Islamics or Christians would suddenly discover that they were pretty much a bunch of amateurs up against the first true modern army in the world. Easy to see why my ancestors pretty much steamrollered most who stood against them.

The irony of it was that the Khan would have been perfectly happy to let the Islamics and the West alone, but NOOO, the Islamics had to be their usual chop-happy selves; they executed his friend, the ambassador that he'd sent in peace to establish trade.

[justa-hairyape]

I know where you coming from then. Play many computer simulations with Medieval Armies and the Mongols are the most difficult to take on, without a doubt. I thought that your ancestors were the Rus or the Novgorod. I have been simulating controlling my first Islamic Army. The Abbasid culture. Based in Baghdad at the time. The Kingdom of Jerusalem attacked me, and let me say that they asked for a ceasefire. Took out quite a few of their armies.

The most difficult scenario was the Knights Templar. Lost many Knights battling Cataphracts, but won the campaign eventually. Still have not figured out how to take on the Mongols. I have been mostly avoiding them in previous simulations. Fighting them at a river bridge crossing or besieging them within a city at least gives you a chance. In the open field, they are most difficult.

[Spktyr]

In reality, Abbasid v. Mongols, the Abbasid will (and did) lose. Badly. Inferior equipment, bad to non-existent tactics, terrible leadership, up against, well, the Horde, who could give modern armies lessons in discipline.

Generally speaking, yeah, your best bet against the Khan’s tactics would be to take and hold a chokepoint or beseige a city, as you’ve already found out. Failing that, a reverse Trojan Horse might work.

[AmericanInTokyo]

That's tame.

I went to the local language newspapers in Mumbai online in the Marathi language, which do not print for a international audience--and therefore are not edited or toned down, and took in the massacre photos over there in al their horrific reality.

They were all UNCENSORED.

One look at that for about 10 minutes and it would be difficult to sleep for a week now doubt.

Merciless they were. The essence of Satan's agents straight out of HELL.

[justa-hairyape]

Generally speaking, yeah, your best bet against the Khan’s tactics would be to take and hold a chokepoint or beseige a city, as you’ve already found out. Failing that, a reverse Trojan Horse might work.

The year right now is 1196, so they will be showing up soon. They will have to get through the Khwarezm Shah before reaching the Great Seljuks and then the Abbasid Caliphate which I control. In this scenario the Kypchak Confederacy is currently attacking the Seljuks in the north now, so I thought I would finish off the Seljuks from the south. What I usually do with the Mongols is retreat and give them some outlying cities (after sacking the city and taking its assets) and then hope they eventually attack someone else. Usually look for a weak point. A single isolated Mongol army and then I attack it with two or three armies. Also try to pin it down at a choke point with my armies having the high ground. You definitely have to outnumber them.

What exactly is a reverse Trojan Horse ?

[justa-hairyape]

The essence of Satan's agents straight out of HELL.

Following Excerpted from First pictures of burned-out rooms inside Mumbai terror siege hotel (Mail Online).

Fellow hostage Peter Worth told how some of the gunmen had smiled at one another while they sprayed hotel guests with bullets.

‘It was as if they were laughing and enjoying the fear as they tried to kill us,’ said the 32-year-old engineer, from Bristol.

IMHO - We simply cannot allow these terrorists to possess nuclear weapons.

[Spktyr]

Set up a bait city, let the enemy invest it, and *just* when they go to attack the city, your hidden army takes them from the flanks as their attention is elsewhere.

[driftdiver]

“In that case, wouldn’t we be better off having a “national internal security force” that _did_ have “the training”?”

No, I would prefer to live in a free country and do the fighting in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

All Nobama’s “national internal security force” will do is lead a wave of oppression.