I admit my crime / broken ladder - mumbai one year on

I admit my crime / broken ladder - mumbai one year on

I was in Mumbai last year when the terrorist attacks were happening. luckily I was not staying at one of the affected hotels. but I'd received at txt around 3am asking if I was ok, so I woke and started watching the tv. at that time the news media were reporting pretty irresponsibly IMHO - showing live footage of locations of the police and telling everyone what the police were doing. the journalists seemed to be in shock which was understandable, but it wasn't until mid the next morning that they started delaying the footage and not handing out details until later. at the time I was trying to use the internet too but twitter was overloaded all the time. I think I got a couple of messages through to facebook and my blog. I was recording some of the tv footage - the English speaking channels at least. the night before I'd recorded the ad for the Champions League cricket competition, which I think was canceled - or at least, the Australian team didn't go? there were many criticisms of the media's coverage of the event on the Indian blogs, and on Sarai list and Kafila blog & elsewhere.

this week will be one year after the attacks. the Times of India website has some articles so tonight I was reliving the night and following day (where I'd flown to Delhi and later caught a flight back to Sydney). I'd been able to get onto a couple of people via mobile the next morning which made me feel better. and I'd had lots of calls from people from work too checking how I was which was comforting. I spent a lot of time in the following months reading the press articles and blogs. I read the confession of the arrested terrorist - he was the only remaining survivor from his group. I almost felt sorry for the situation he had found himself in and I kept wondering, at which point in all of this training did he not stop and think, "hang on, they're talking about killing people", and what sort of life he must have had in order to not find this a problem. it's awful what they did to the people of Mumbai and tourists. but it's also a desparate situation on his/their part too as I'm sure they were not the organizers behind the attack - just the participants, however willing. what a crazy world this is. it made me sad for a while to think about me being there (even if not directly involved) and what happened to the people involved and the whole situation & background of many of the people there that puts them into these situations. I think watching the tv made it worse as they sensationalized everything - really gave it the CNN / USA flashy headline - scare the public treatment.

as I understand it, Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist is awaiting trial in an Indian prison

"Mujhe gunah kabool hai (I admit my crime). We fired on the public at CST" -- Ajmal Kasab confesses via http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/Sir-mujhe-mera-gunaah-kabo...

this all happened during #vlomo08 which is why I had my cameras ready at the time

http://www.aliak.com/content/broken-ladder

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/11mumterror-confession-of-caught-ter...

http://indiainteracts.com/columnist/2008/12/03/Youth-Violence-and-Terror...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/Sir-mujhe-mera-gunaah-kabo...

http://www.aliak.com/content/mumbai-people-advised-stay-indoors

#vlomo09 day21

21/11/2009

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