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| PM: terror strike planned overseas | | Advani says attack more ferocious since independence | | WAR ON MUMBAI
AGENCIES
MUMBAI, Nov 27: As many as 125 people, including 14 police personnel, have been killed in the Mumbai terror attacks, the Union Home Ministry confirmed tonight.
Quoting latest figures received from Mumbai, the Ministry said the dead also included six foreigners and one homeguard jawan. The remaining 104 were public. The Ministry said 327 persons were injured -- police 26, public 294 and foreigners seven
Terrorists who struck Mumbai had set up advance "Control Rooms" in the luxury Taj and Trident(Oberoi) hotels which was also targeted and did prior reconnaissance executing plans worked "over months", Union minister Kapil Sibal said tonight.
Sibal said the unprecedented terror attack in the country's financial capital was planned "over months" and the terrorists were not carrying AK-47 rifles but sophisticated weapons like MP-6.
"The terrorists have identified the targets earlier. Somebody had told them earlier. Enormous planning went into the incident. The terrorists were dropped by a mother ship and travelled in rubber boats which they docked (at Mumbai)," Sibal said. Terrorists were not attacking people at random. It was a well though out plan, Sibal said.
They had targeted certain key police officers even when they were wearing vests and protective head gears, he said, adding the terrorists shot them dead within minutes of their arrival.
Blaming elements outside the country for the terror strikes in Mumbai, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday warned that India will not tolerate the use of territories of its neighbours for attacks here.
Talking tough in an extraordinary address to the nation, he said: "It is evident that the group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with the single-minded determination to create havoc in the commercial capital of the country." India will take up "strongly with our neighbours that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them." He said the "well-planned and well-orchestrated attacks, probably with external linkages, were intended to create a sense of panic by choosing high profile targets and indiscriminately killing foreigners."
Meanwhile, leader of the Opposition L K Advani has termed the Mumbai attack as the most ferocious terrorist attack of the country since Independence.
"It is the most ferocious terrorist attack in India since Independence. Mumbai is the financial capital of the country and such attacks not only affect India but also the rest of the world," Advani said after his arrival here in the evening.
When asked if he saw the whole attack as a government failure, he said, "the government itself has agreed that it is an intelligence failure." "I will speak on the attack in detail later," he added.
When asked why did he not accompany Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as planned and said by him in the morning, he said, "he (PM) was getting late and it seemed that he would come only tomorrow. I have my election programmes planned for tomorrow and hence had to rush because I wanted to take a feel of the situation here," he said.
Party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said in New Delhi that the original plan of Advani to visit Mumbai along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to be altered after his talk with Home Minister Shivraj Patil this afternoon in which Patil had suggested the visit would take place tomorrow. |
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