- Friday, February 28, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Saturday (26) marked the 14th anniversary of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and as tributes poured in remembering the lives lost during the dreadful event, India’s external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar tweeted ‘terrorism threatens humanity’ while remembering the victims.
“Those who planned and oversaw this attack must be brought to justice. We owe this to every victim of terrorism around the world,” he said, sharing a short video from the deadly attack that left 166 people, including foreign nationals, dead and more than 300 injured.
Terrorism threatens humanity.
Today, on 26/11, the world joins India in remembering its victims. Those who planned and oversaw this attack must be brought to justice.
We owe this to every victim of terrorism around the world. pic.twitter.com/eAQsVQOWFe
— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) November 26, 2022
Ten Pakistani terrorists reached Mumbai, India’s financial capital, by sea on November 26, 2008, and indiscriminately fired at people at many places in the city, killing more than 160 people, including 18 security personnel, and injuring many others. Properties worth millions were also damaged.
The then Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare, Indian Army major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, Mumbai’s additional police commissioner Ashok Kamte, and senior police inspector Vijay Salaskar were among the dead.
The attacks continued till November 29 and a number of key points in the city, including, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the Oberoi Trident, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, Leopold Cafe, Cama Hospital, the Nariman House Jewish community centre were targeted by the terrorists.
Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist captured alive, was hanged four years later on November 21, 2012.
India were then under the governance of the Indian National Congress-led United Progressive Alliance with Manmohan Singh as the prime minister.
In the western state of Maharashtra, governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and chief minister Eknath Shinde paid floral tributes to the martyrs who laid down their lives while fighting extremists during the deadly attacks.
Family members of the policemen, who lost their lives, also paid tributes to the martyrs.
Indian president Droupadi Murmu also paid tributes saying the nation remembers with gratitude all those it lost.
On the anniversary of 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, the nation remembers with gratitude all those we lost. We share the enduring pain of their loved ones and families. Nation pays homage to the security personnel who fought valiantly and made supreme sacrifice in the line of duty.
— President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) November 26, 2022
A day before, India told the United Nations that its efforts to sanction those involved in the 2008 terror attacks were blocked in the past for political reasons, allowing them to organise more cross-border assaults against the country.
The remark came after China’s repeated efforts to resist the proposal by India and the US to blacklist Pakistan-based militant and Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed’s son Hafiz Talah Saeed and designate him as a “global terrorist”.
Hafiz Saeed is the mastermind of the 2008 attacks.
