You cannot miss the contrast. Our TV channels continue to get South Mumbai’s celebrities … the chattering classes to express their “anger, and outrage” at how nothing has changed in Mumbai after last year’s attacks, how the same politicians have returned to power, how we continue to be a “soft state” and such stuff. Programmes where even Times of India’s veteran journalist Bachi Karkaria got shouted down by the likes of Shobha De when she dared to say there was a lot of “chatter anger” being expressed at TV shows recalling the attacks.

An outraged Ms De said that but for the anger expressed by the “chattering classes” the Mumbai attacks would not have got the attention they did from the politicians. And yet, she concluded, the “same old people” are back in power or are “rehabilitated” and that makes her so angry.

Anyway, in contrast to such breast-beating seen on our channels in the days leading up to the first anniversary of the Mumbai tragedy, the Discovery programme revisits that horror through sensitive interviews with survivors. True, the television channels too are featuring survivors on their programmes. But they are not the main players… their sound bytes, the time allotted to them pale against the time/footage hogged by the chatterati of Mumbai.

Returning to Discovery, specially riveting are the accounts of two couples — Anjali and her American husband Michael Pollock, who were trapped in the Taj Mahal Hotel, and the Turkish couple Seyfi and Meltem Muezzinoglu, who were taken hostage at the Oberoi Hotel. Along with these four and other survivors, including hotel staff, the programme chillingly recreates the heartlessness, the diabolism and the brutality of the terrorists’ handlers in Pakistan. Extracts of their phone conversations with the terrorists in Mumbai are expertly interwoven in the survivors’ accounts.

More than once the bosses from Pakistan, while instructing the terrorists holed up at the Taj and Oberoi on whom to kill, how many to kill and how exactly to kill (“put the bullet right through the head”), say: “…And keep the phone line open, we want to hear the shots”. Surely these are not human beings, you tell yourself.

Meltem soon realises that these are Islamist ultras whose prime target is westerns, particularly Americans and British. She is wearing a black shawl, which she hastily wraps around her head “as Mulsim women do”. Her husband Seyfi is asked to prove he is Muslim and he recites the Sura al-Fateha (recited for the dead) from the Quran and the terrorists are satisfied. When they convey this to their masters in Pakistan, they are ordered to spare the “two Muslims” and kill the other three hostages.

She relates how one of them is an elderly Indian woman who stands smiling even after bullets have been sprayed into her body. The enraged terrorist has to reload the cartridge and spray more bullets to finally make her fall. Seeing the bodies before him, in an act of defiance, Seyfi steps forward, puts up his palms and recites the Sura al-Fateha, even as the terrorist’s eyes go wide in disbelief.

The Turkish couple’s story gives you an insight into the sheer cruelty and diabolism, on the one hand, and naivete, on the other. Like when the terrorist leaves the couple, they lock the door of the room and he returns and asks to be let in. A firm ‘No’ is relayed through the door. After a while, Meltem discovers that “the duffers” had forgotten the back-pack which contained “bombs, grenades and their food.”

Anjali and Michael are led by the Taj staff to the Chambers Hall, where they are very safe, until “an Indian politician” who is also hiding there gives an interview to a radio station. The question the reporter asks him — and which journalists over the entire duration of the siege asked the trapped they managed to contact during the carnage — will make journalists put down their heads in shame. “Sir, tell me, exactly where are you… what is your exact location”.

The “exact location” is given, broadcast, and the terrorist handlers know it within minutes. They direct the terrorists towards the first floor, where they say (erroneously) “three ministers and a government of India secretary” are trapped. This disclosure is greeted with a jubilant “yeh toh cake par cream jaisa hai” (icing on the cake).

Both Anjali and Michael are hiding here and he leaves her side because he is white and thinks she’ll have a greater chance of surviving if she’s not seen with him. She, on her part, keeps praying that if one of them is to die, “let it be me.” But eventually both escape because the Taj staff lock the door to the Chambers hall and lead the terrorists away from the place, putting themselves literally in the line of fire.

The transcript of the audio tapes accompanying the recreated video footage infuriates you, and the survivors’ accounts break your heart. Ms Merkel, who lost her husband at the Taj, says: “I don’t think they had a plan; they wanted to kill as many as possible.” More than once the Pakistan handlers ask the terrorists to keep exploding grenades every 10 or 15 minutes… “is sey khauf failenga (this will terrorise them), and egg them on to kill more by saying “the whole world is watching”.

The NSG commandos, of course, are the ultimate heroes. When finally the Chambers’ door opens and a commando walks in, Anjali says: “If I say he looked as good as Brad Pitt, I’m not exaggerating”!

The brilliant footage is full of tenderness and fear, hope and despair, drama and horror, raw courage and smiles in the midst of blood and gore, and, without being overtly obtrusive, gives one a peek into the lives of the survivors. For instance, even at home Seyfi cannot be without his wife even for five minutes, and finds himself calling her name if she’s in another room for too long.

It ends by describing how the unclaimed bodies of the nine dead terrorists are still in a Mumbai morgue and how the Indian Muslim Council has refused to give them an Islamic burial.

Absent from this documentary are name-calling, blame-game, passing the buck, or running down the police, security forces, and government. It even spares the media’s role… star journalists whipping out their cell phones, contacting the trapped people or top crisis managers/administrators and then relaying their response strategy on their channels (the ‘remember-you-saw-it-first-on-this-channel’ drivel), without a thought on how they were divulging priceless information to the armed marauders in Mumbai through their masters in Pakistan.

As TV anchors scream: ‘Are the authorities prepared for another such attack? We don’t think so”, they’d do well to also ask: “Will the media behave less stupidly and show more sensitivity if such an attack, God forbid, were to be repeated?” Or: “Will the administration show more sense than to allow TV cameras and electronic and print journalists so close to the terror spot?”

More Stories on : Terrorism | Rasheeda Bhagat | Radio/TV

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