Attacks in Mumbai

I want to thank everyone who has called my mom and dad to check to make sure that I am OK here in India. It means a lot that people are worried. Although it worries my mom every time the phone rings when something like this has happened.

I know my parents are both worried about me and they have reason to fear (the simple fact that they are parents), but I also think they are being strong about this as well.

Firstly, I am safe and quite far away from the incidents. I am about 600km away from Mumbai, and here is a map to show exactly the locations.




This is a very random attack, and what is scary is it is the first of it's kind, no one has seen anything like this. Also what is scary is that the terrorists are looking for people with American and British passports. I guess this is when it is good to be Canadian. OK, bad joke, because seriously, I look and sound like an American, and last I read on the news 6 Canadians were being held hostage inside the Taj hotel.

No one really knows much about the groups who are involved with the attacks other than they are most likely NOT Indian nationals and that they arrived by boat at the gateway of Mumbai.
The other freaky thing is this time last or around this time I was in India. I had just visited Mumbai about 3 weeks earlier, and I had visited all the locations that the terrorists targeted. I even had lunch and drinks at Leopolds restaurant. This restaurant was targeted because it was made famous in the book Shantaram, where the foreigners would go to hang out and drink.

The attacks have been described by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as "well planned and very orchestrated attacks probably with external linkages to create panic by choosing high profile targets and indiscriminately killing innocent foreigners"

Regardless of what you heard in the media, they still don't know who is responsible for these attacks, and although a group called the Deccan Mujahideen has sent emails taking credit for the attacks, the police think that this is a red herring likely to steer the police in the wrong direction.

In Hyderabad the police are taking precautions as well, since this is the Silicon Valley of India, and so there are increased check posts, and our huge work party scheduled for yesterday at the 5 star hotel The Taj Deccan was cancelled for security reasons. These are just precautions, and although I disagree with stopping your life because of terrorists, I think that Hyderabad is probably quite safe from any attacks. And outside of this incident, I still stand by the fact that India is a safe place to travel to.

So, although I am safe from harm and far from these events, there are many people who lost their lives (125), 6 of these being foreigners and 14 being police officers. The attacks are still continuing, and so please pray for those still being held hostage and pray these attacks end soon.