2008 Mumbai attacks

The 2008 Mumbai attacks were a series of terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008. 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an extremist organisation, carried out 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. At least 174 people died, including 9 attackers, and more than 300 were wounded. India’s National Security Guards conducted Operation Black Tornado to flush out the remaining attackers; it culminated in the death of the last remaining attackers at the Taj Hotel.

About 2008 Mumbai attacks in brief

Summary 2008 Mumbai attacksThe 2008 Mumbai attacks were a series of terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008. 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an extremist organisation, carried out 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. At least 174 people died, including 9 attackers, and more than 300 were wounded. On 29 November, India’s National Security Guards conducted Operation Black Tornado to flush out the remaining attackers; it culminated in the death of the last remaining attackers at the Taj Hotel. Pakistan condemned the attacks. On 9 April 2015, the foremost ringleader of the attacks, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, was released on bail and disappeared. In 2018, former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif suggested that the Pakistani government played a role in the 2008 Mumbai attack. A group of men, sometimes stated as 24 and at other times 26, received training in marine warfare at a remote camp in mountainous Muzaffarabad in Pakistan. The recruits went through the following stages of training, according to Indian and US media reports: From the students, ten were handpicked for the Mumbai mission. They were given blueprints of all the four targets – The Taj Mahal Hotel, Nariman House, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and The Oberoi Trident. The first events were when 10 men in inflatable boats came ashore at two locations in Colaba. They reportedly told local Marathi fishermen who asked them to mind their own business and split up. The fishermen’s subsequent report to the police department received little response and local police received little information about the attackers.

The attackers were later identified by police and identified by the police as Ismail Khan and Ajmal Kasab. The sole surviving attacker, Ismail Kasab, was later caught alive by police. The Government of India stated that the attackers came from Pakistan, and their controllers were in Pakistan, Pakistan later confirmed that the sole surviving perpetrator of the attack was a Pakistani citizen. On 13 March 2003, a bomb exploded in a train compartment near the Mulund station, killing 10 people and injuring 70. On 6 December 2002, a blast in a BEST bus near Ghatkopar station killed two people and injured 28. On 25 August 2003, two bombs exploded in South Mumbai, one near the Gateway of India and the other at Zaveri Bazaar in Kalbadevi. On 11 July 2006, seven bombs exploded within 11 minutes on the Suburban Railway in Mumbai, killing 209 people, including 22 foreigners and more more than 700 injured. The bombing occurred on the 10th anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. The attacks were carried out in revenge for earlier religious riots that killed many Muslims. On 12 March 1993, 13 coordinated bomb explosions that killed 257 people, and injured 700 on 12 March1993. On 27 January 2003, one bicycle bomb exploded near the Vile Parle station in Mumbai,. killing one person and injuring 25 on 27 January 2013, a day before the visit of the Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee to the city.