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Mumbai: One Year Later

Washington’s response to 9/11 may have been over the top, but it sent the right message. India’s sleepy reaction to the terrorist assault on Mumbai a year ago today is an invitation to another attack, says M.J. Akbar.

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AP Photo / NDTV
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On Wednesday, November 26, 2008, 10 heavily armed Islamist militants targeted luxury hotels, tourist locations, hospitals, a Jewish organization, and the city's largest train station in a series of coordinated attacks across India's financial and commercial capital of Mumbai, killed over 200 people. In this news broadcast screen shot, police officers convene at the scene of a restaurant attack near the Taj Hotel. In this news segment, A.N. Roy, police commissioner of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, reported that several people had been wounded in the attacks and that police were battling the gunmen. "The terrorists have used automatic weapons and in some places grenades have been lobbed," said Roy. The intentions of the attacks were not initially clear.

AP Photo / NDTV
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Here a gunman walks through the Victoria Terminus station, also known as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station in southern Mumbai on November 26. In addition to the train station, gunmen opened fire on the popular, luxury Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, hospitals, the Jewish organization Chabad House, and Leopold's Cafe, a Mumbai landmark, taking Westerners hostage and holding various parts of the city under siege. The terrorist attacks lasted from November 26 until November 29. The terrorists were finally stopped by a series of armed counteroffensives led by National Security Guards and police.

Sebastian D'souza / Mumbai Mirror / AP Photo
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An Indian policeman escorts a lone survivor from the shooting site at Chhatrapati Shivaji where gunmen armed with powerful assault rifles and grenades attacked the station filled with tourists and local commuters.

STR / AFP / Getty Images
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Employees and guests use curtains to escape the Taj Mahal hotel as fire engulfs the top floor late on the evening of November 26. Many foreign guests were taken hostage.

Lorenzo Tugnoli / AFP / Newscom
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The aftermath of tragedy: Flames gush out of the Taj Mahal hotel the day following the first day of terrorist attacks. At least 200 people were killed in the attacks overall, and an additional estimated 300 to 350 were injured.

Indranil Murkerjee / AFP / Getty Images
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Journalists lie on the ground to avoid stray bullets while reporting the attacks near the Taj Mahal hotel on November 28. Gunfight with terrorists continued on Friday during the rescue operation by Indian soldiers in Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel, Oberoi hotel and Chabad House, where many people were trapped or held as hostages by terrorists.

Xinhua / Landov
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A woman evacuated from the besieged Trident-Oberoi hotel looks out of a bus in Mumbai on November 28.

Desmond Boylan / Reuters
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A man resting on the ground is seen through a bullet hole in the window of a restaurant at the Chhatrapati Shivaji station a few days after the attacks.

Uriel Sinai / Getty Images
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On Sunday, November 30, Damyanti Bhen, center, is consoled by friends in front of Chabad House, where her son was shot and killed by terrorists while hiding inside. Countless local survivors were forced to try to overcome the trauma of the unimaginable three-day terrorist attack on their city.

Saurabh Das / AP Photo
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A shopkeeper attempts to clean the remains of his store near Chabad House, which was destroyed by the November 30 attack on the area. After a final siege at the Taj Mahal hotel, lives of people in Mumbai began to return to normal, though the main areas attacked by the gunmen were still blocked by the police.

Xinhua / Photoshot / Newscom
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As dozens of victims were still trapped or held captive in Mumbai, Socialist Party supporters in Allahabad, India, shouted slogans on November 27 while burning an effigy of terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks.

Rajesh Kumar Singh / AP Photo
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Relatives carry the body of Harish Gohil, who was killed by a gunman's bullet at Nariman House, during a funeral in Mumbai on November 29, 2008.

Punit Paranjpe / Reuters
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Mumbaikars shout anti-Pakistan slogans as they and thousands of others take part in a mass demonstration march following last weeks series of terrorist attacks on the city, near the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel, on December 3 , 2008 in Mumbai, India. Two bombs were discovered and defused earlier today by Mumbai police at a train station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, which was one of the locations attacked by the terrorists. The attacks left at least 200 dead and injured over 300 people.

Uriel Sinai/Getty Images
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Poonam Singh, injured in the 2008 attacks, looks on as her son Sachin sleeps at the J.J. Hospital in Mumbai on January 27, 2009.

Indranil Mukherjee / AFP / Getty Images
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Pakistani police escort Hafiz Saeed, the head of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), from a court hearing in Lahore on May 5, 2009. India holds Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) accountable for the November attacks in Mumbai which killed 200 people and aggravated India's relationships with its nuclear-armed south Asian neighbors. In addition to efforts to freeze the Jamaat-ud-Dawa's assets, Saeed and more than 120 others were placed under house arrest.

Arif Ali / AFP / Getty Images
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An Indian man bathes in the street on July 20, 2009, as soldiers patrol the streets neighboring the bombproof court inside Arthur Road prison, where the trial for the November 2008 attacks was conducted. The same day, 21-year-old Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Kasab—the sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks—pleaded guilty, admitting his part in the atrocity for the first time.

Indranil Mukherjee / AFP / Getty Images
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March 15, 2009: An Indian man dives into the sea in front of the Taj Mahal hotel several months after the Mumbai attacks.

UPI Photo / Landov
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People light candles outside the Raghunath Hindu Temple in Amritsar in honor of the victims of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. One year later, seven people have been charged in connection with the attacks by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan.

Narinder Nanu / AFP / Getty Images