India security chief resigns after Mumbai attacks

MUMBAI – With corpses still being pulled from a once-besieged hotel, India’s top security official resigned yesterday as the government struggled under growing accusations of security failures following terror attacks that killed 174 people.

Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who has become highly unpopular during a long series of terror attacks across India, submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who accepted it, according to the president’s office.
The Cabinet reshuffle comes as a chorus of criticism about the government’s handling of the Mumbai attacks grows louder.
‘Our Politicians Fiddle as Innocents Die,’ read a headline yesterday in the Times of India newspaper.
A day after the siege ended, authorities were still removing victims bodies from the ritzy Taj Mahal hotel, where three suspected Muslim militants made a last stand before Indian commandos killed them in a blaze of gunfire and explosions.
Yesterday, the waterfront landmark, popular among foreign tourists and Indian high society, was surrounded by metal barricades, its shattered windows boarded over. At the iconic Gateway of India basalt arch nearby, a shrine of candles, flowers and messages commemorated victims.
‘We have been to two funerals already,’ Mumbai resident Karin Dutta said as she placed a small bouquet of white flowers for several friends killed in the hotel. ‘We’re going to another one now.’
The rampage was carried out by gunmen at 10 sites across Mumbai starting on Wednesday night. At least 239 were wounded.
One site, the Cafe Leopold, a famous tourist restaurant and the scene of one of the first attacks, opened yesterday for the first time since the mayhem – but police asked it to close just minutes later because they said the eatery needed permission first.
Mirrors, doors and panelling were riddled with bullet holes from the assault that killed seven people there.
‘I want them (the attackers) to feel we have won, they have lost,’ restaurant manager Farzad Jehani said of the symbolic opening. ‘We’re back in action.’
The death toll was revised down yesterday from 195 after authorities said some bodies were counted twice, but they said it could rise again as areas of the Taj Mahal were still being searched. Among the dead were 18 foreigners, including six Americans. Nine gunmen were killed.
The dead also included Germans, Canadians, Israelis and nationals from Britain, Italy, Japan, China, Thailand, Australia and Singapore.
A previously unknown Muslim group called Deccan Mujahideen – a name suggesting origins inside India – has claimed responsibility for the attacks. But Indian officials said the sole surviving gunman, now in custody, was from Pakistan and voiced suspicions of their neighbour. – Nampa-AP

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