Sheer Brutality

What has happened in Mumbai remains tonight almost impossible to encapsulate. The sheer wanton brutality appears to be a step change beyond anything we have seen before. What happened in Mumbai involved around some 20 men going into the station, a restaurant, several hotels, a Jewish centre, and spraying machine gun fire at women, children and random people, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Jewish, some Christian, some nothing. They saw the whites of the eyes of the people they killed. They had time to reload the magazines of their guns, time even to think.

It’s hard to determine who they are because the group they claim to be has never been heard of. And in India extremism has often been interwoven with sheer criminal gang activity. Head of Indian commandos says siege at Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai is now over, after three days of violence which left at least 144 dead. As we go to air, though the terrorists have been captured, it is still unclear how near is the end of the terrorism. It is unclear who is perpetrating it. And it is unclear what the consequence of it all will be in the future. Bravo Indian commandos. They deserve medals. But without doubt 26/11 will go down as another ratchet up in litany of international criminality, in which both politics and religion appear to play a part.