Attack on Parliament: Terrorists attack heart of India's democracy

SHOOT TO KILL: Security personnel swing into actionThe world may consider it the unluriest set of digits in the world but R.K. Anand doesn't think so. Every time the lawyer-parliamentarian acquires a car, he orders special licence plates with the number "13" on them. It may seem like mocking convention, but Anand believes he has very good reasons.Heading for Parliament, Anand, a Rajya Sabha member, got ready to alight from his car (DVY13) at the porch just outside the main entrance. He had barely opened the door when the world around him exploded in a loud blast, the staccato of gunfire and a wall of smoke. His vision blurred, Anand ordered his driver to get away. Forty minutes later, there was blood on the ground and dread in the air.The human bomb among the attackers exploded in front of the HouseOn December 13, death had looked Anand - and virtually the entire political class of India - in the face and then looked away. A suicide squad of five terrorists with grenades in backpacks, Kalashnikovs strapped across their chests and murder on their mind stunned a nation. Contrary to democratic ideal, the Houses of Parliament do not symbolise the aspirations of the masses but the clout of a chosen few. The attack was a message to them that in an environment of high political stakes and heightened anxiety, no one was safe.Click here to EnlargeThe attack on Parliament was reality television at its horrific best, September 11 and the World Trade Center translated into Indian idiom. When a shaky calm returned to Parliament so did the realisation that the country had been lucky. All five militants lay dead, along with six security personnel and a gardener. Eighteen others, including 12 security staff and a TV cameraman, were injured.It could have been much, much worse. In the three rings of security that encircle Parliament, the first - entry and access - went down with alarming rapidity, but it was the speed of reaction of the next two that prevented total carnage from taking place in the corridors of power. Had even one of the five armed terrorists, suspected to be hardcore Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) men, gained entry into the main Parliament building the casualties could have been enormous. SEE AND SEIZE: A bag belonging to the attackers is put into a bomb disposal binThe consequences are too frightening to contemplate. At one stage, the terrorists were less than a metre away from the three steps that lead into the office of the the Rajya Sabha Chairman, Vice-President Krishan Kant. The simple, swift action of slamming doors prevented a violent sequence of events spiralling out of control.It all began with that ubiquitous beetle-like symbols of politics, a white Ambassador driving towards the main Parliament building from the Parliament Street entrance, its red light flashing. The Parliament sticker on the Ambassador (DL3CJ 1527) was later found to have anti-Vajpayee and Advani abuse scribbled on it. The car was waved through the gate and went straight across the main gate towards the Vijay Chowk end. The militants then swung the car sharply to the right at the bend in front of gate 12, but found their way blocked near gate 11 by a clutch of cars belonging to the vice-president's cavalcade.TROOPING IN: The army was brought in to flush out the attackers As the driver of the rogue car tried to slow down, he hit one of the vehicle and came to a screeching halt near the Rajya Sabha lawns. By then, its shrill, erratic path had alerted the vice-president's securitymen. Parliament House security officer J.P. Yadav raised an alarm over his walkie-talkie and when the first response from the men in the car came - with bullets not words - Yadav is killed at point-blank range.CRPF constable Kamlesh Kumari had tried waving the car to a halt but was cut down by the bullets. Gardener Desh Raj, tending the Rajya Sabha lawns on a crisp winter morning, fell where he worked.Securitymen remove the body of one of the terroristsFour terrorists then scaled a wall beyond gate 11, taking cover from the general melee and took off civilian clothes under which they were wearing olive-green fatigues. Along with assault rifles, each man carried at least a dozen grenades in his backpack. They sprinted towards gate 5, from where the prime minister enters, where securitymen were readying for Vajpayee's arrival. Yadav's alert on the wireless electrified the watch and ward staff who immediately shut all the doors into Parliament. The terrorists' chances of "success" were whittling away: having scaled the wall and running in the open they came under fire from the CRPF men along the perimeter wall and the columns on the first floor verandah of Parliament. PRAHLAD PATEL Lok Sabha member"I found a member of the W&W staff still left outside. I dragged her inside. As we were closing the door, a bullet came through."DALBIR SINGH, Security officer"I heard bullets zooming past my right ear and my leg. I just got into the car and a bullet hit its boot." Three of the four militants died near gates 8 and 9, the fourth militant tried to climb to the first floor using a Doordarshan cable. He was shot, fell off the cable but still tried to hobble towards gate 5, hurling grenades before a volley of bullets killed him.The fifth militant had raced towards gate 1 in an attempt to cause damage near the main entrance. He was spraying bullets and lobbing grenades shouting "Pakistan paindabad" (Pakistan zindabad). He reached the main entrance and blew himself up on the main stairs. When it was all over, the statue of Mahatma Gandhi, behind which the camera crews had taken desperate shelter, overlooked a surreal scene: a broken body lay on the steps of the main entrance to Parliament, bits of flesh and stains of blood dotted the portico and every one walking in a slow daze back to some semblance of recovery in a haze of smoke.The terrorists had broken into Parliament with a clear game plan: to get into the main building and create mayhem and perhaps even take a hostage or two. In short, attract maximum publicity. They headed for the prime minister's gate first, which is why they first drove straight past the main entrance. BLOW BY BLOW: The gory aftermathWhen investigators discovered 30 kg of explosives in the Ambassador, it became clear that the suicide squad wanted to drive up to any entrance and ram the vehicle into it. At the same time, the fifth terrorist would have used the diversion to run into the main entrance again.The plan went awry for several reasons: firstly, they could not gain entry into the main building as all doors had been sealed. Secondly, the construction of the wall between gates 10 and 11 was an obstacle that the terrorists had no previous knowledge of. Finally, and most significantly, the collision with the vice-president's car loosened the wires connecting the explosives in the terrorists' car and the RDX couldn't be detonated at any stage of their operation.A securityman is treated for woundsIntelligence officials discovered that the car had been bought two days before the incident from its previous owners, Lucky Motors, in Delhi's crowded Karol Bagh locality. The car, a January 1997 model, had been sold for Rs 1.10 lakh, and that was the sixth time the car was changing hands.The contents of the militants' bags revealed their back-up plans: stocks of dry fruits hinted that had they been able to penetrate the main Parliament building, they could have held out in a siege or hostage situation. Intelligence agencies confirmed that the attack - a trademark fidayeen strike - had its roots across the Wagah border. Less than 24 hours after the attack, two Pakistani nationals, suspected LeT operatives, were picked up from Hotel Ambassador in Delhi. The two men were in touch with the militants over their cell phones. It was their interrogation that led to the Indian Government declaring that the LeT was behind the attack.A grenade in one of the militant's bagThe remains of the suicide bomberThough the plans did not work out, the impact of the suicide mission was tremendous and has immediately upped the Government's ante on the question of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. A delegation of BJP MPs met the prime minister a day after the attack demanding an intensification of "hot pursuit". Union Home Minister L.K. Advani spelt out the resolution of the Cabinet Committee on Security Affairs in no uncertain terms, "We'll liquidate the terrorists and their sponsors, wherever they are, whoever they are."Strangely enough, a day before the attack, Hurriyat Alliance Chairman Abdul Ghani Bhat uttered some very mysterious words at a press conference in Srinagar. The Hurriyat will now have to explain them. SUNNY SINGH, An MP's driver"He put his hands on his waist and his body blew into pieces. I never saw so much blood except in Hindi films.""The Government should destroy Lashkar wherever it is, even it means attacking Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir."Bhat opened the conference with enigmatic remarks, "December 13 will be an important event not only in Kashmir but in the US too. How? Wait for 12 hours and you will know... I trust the events will not disappoint either me or you."Disappointment seems a very cruel word and not only to the members of the families who lost loved ones in the attack. In Delhi's Ram Manohar Lohia hospital where the dead and injured were being brought in on the day of the attack, Kamlesh Kumari's husband Avdesh sat surrounded by shocked CRPF officers. "I am ruined," he cried, "I am ruined." The hospital suspended routine surgeries to tend to the wounded and within four hours every one injured - whether from bullet wounds or grenade shrapnel - was attended to. The brother-in-law of another victim, Delhi Police ASI Nanak Singh, summed up the feelings, "I cannot believe the audacity of these people."STATUE SHIELD: Camera crews took shelter behind Mahatma Gandhi's statueWithin hours of the attack, another brand of audacity was shocking even the most cynical politician. Opposition parties, obsessed with the outcome of elections in three states next year - Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, and Punjab - decided it was time to begin counting their votes.Congress spokesman Jaipal Reddy used the occasion to reiterate his party's stand on the controversial POTO bill. "POTO has been in operation for the past seven weeks and we see it has not been able to prevent this attack on Parliament. So of what use is the law of counter terrorism?" Reddy said, blaming the incident on the "administrative incompetence of the Government". But a few Congress MPs thought their party had overdone the dissent. "This is an hour of grief. Some alien forces have attacked us and here we are quibbling with the Government," said one. The prime minister, abandoned restraint for rhetoric: "The war against terrorism had entered its last phase. It would be a fight to the finish."A day later Vajpayee thanks security personnel who braved bullets to save othersThe day after the attack, the white Ambassadors with their flashing red lights returned to Parliament, so did the MPs and ministers and their posse of securitymen. They paid tribute to the security personnel who had taken bullets meant for them, their ultimate duty. Their families would be compensated and their presence of mind recognised and rewarded.Shattered glass would be replaced, blood stains wiped clean. The statue of Gandhi would preside sagely over the comings and goings of politics. But the import of what happened at that spot on December 13 will never fade. It has become India's own Ground Zero. with Sharad Gupta, Lakshmi Iyer and Anshul AvijitPublished By: AtMigration Published On: Dec 24, 2001 00:00 IST--- ENDS ---

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Attack on Parliament: Terrorists attack heart of India's democracy

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