Images: 26/11, Those Three Days

Rediff.com covered the 26/11 attacks of 2008 on Mumbai from the moment they began.

A look back at the evocative photographs shot by the rediff.com team during those grim days.       

November 26, a little after midnight: Ajmal Kasab's shoes left on Marine Drive, Girgaum Chowpatty, after he was taken in custody.

To bystanders, including rediff reporters on the spot, it was not clear what had just happened initially. There had been some shooting. A lot of noise. A terrorist had been captured was all that was known.

November 26, after midnight: After terrorist Ajmal Kasab's capture, a team of policemen check the Skoda Laura that he and his accomplice commandeered at Nariman Point and drove down Marine Drive.

November 26, after midnight: Mumbai police comb the spot on Marine Drive where terrorist Ajmal Kasab was caught alive

November 26, after midnight: Examining the hijacked Skoda Laura on Marine Drive.

November 26, after midnight: The Trident, and its sister hotel The Oberoi, were ringed with Rapid Action Force trucks, police vans and army jeeps. Police commissioners, senior government officers and politicians kept stopping by. Scores of relatives anxiously kept vigil in the shadows.

November 26, after midnight: Rapid Action Forces circle the Trident hotel at Nariman Point. 

November 26, after midnight: Armed forces mass outside the Trident hotel.

November 28, late night: Waiting for the bodies outside the Trident, Nariman Point.

November 26, after midnight: Two bemused constables stand in front of a burning Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel.

November 26, after midnight: Guests being evacuated from the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel. Scores of guests climbed down ladders set up by the fire department from the hotel's first floor ball room. The hotel consists of a heritage wing and the more modern tower. A gun battle was in progress in the tower. While guests in finery, attending a wedding, were escaping from the heritage wing that had caught fire.

November 26, after midnight: Guests evacuated at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower were loaded into ambulances.

November 26, after midnight: The old heritage wing of the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel catches fire. The fire resulted in many deaths.

November 26, after midnight: Hauntingly empty, deathly quiet streets in front of the besieged Chabad House, also called Nariman House, which was a Jewish outreach centre unknown to many a Colaba resident. Rapid Action Force troops roamed the narrow lanes.

November 27, mid morning: Police aid the army and NSG from outside the Trident hotel.

November 27, early morning: Soldiers take position behind  a fleet of fire brigade vehicles in front of Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel.

November 27, late evening: The Oberoi hotel, Nariman Point catches fire. The terrorists entered the hotel sometime after 21.00 hours .

November 27, very late night: NSG and army top brass arrived outside the Chabad House lane in Colaba to strategise. The buildings around the Chabad House are tightly packed and building after building was evacuated late at night before the start of the NSG operation November 28.

November 28, post dawn: A helicopter hovers above the Chabad House, Colaba to drop NSG commandos on the building's terrace. This picture taken by a resident held hostage by the operation in a neighbouring building. A thundering fleet of helicopters, carrying the commandos, swooped out of the sky early morning. 

November 28, mid morning: The operation to free the Chabad House or Nariman House in progress. A commando on the roof. The stillness was broken by the whine of automatic guns and exploding grenades. Snipers, hidden between buildings, in the rabbit warren of lanes, engaged the terrorists as the commandos crept their way downwards.

November 28, post midday: A commando on the roof of the CHabad House assesses the scene on the floors below.

November 28, late afternoon: The NSG commandos have now exploded their way down two floors, punching a giant hole in the building that caused all the neighbouring buildings to reverberate. There is no sign of the terrorists in the lower floors. Just the sound of pigeons and the flapping curtains in the windows of the Chabad House. 

November 28, mid afternoon: The press reporting in front of the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel.

November 28, early afternoon: A commando runs for cover outside the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower.

November 28, post dusk: The operation at Nariman House is mostly over. The building and its environs is being secured for unexploded grenades etc. As the troops begin withdrawal the neighbourhood residents break the curfew to turn out of their homes and cheer the troops.

November 29, early morning: The fire is out at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower but the smoke will take days to go.

November 29, early morning: Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata group, which owns the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel, waits grimly, with the NSG commandos, outside the hotel as bodies of those killed are being brought out.

November 29, early afternoon: The funerals begin. The family of senior police officer Hemant Karkare mourn.

Post 26/11: The spot in front of the Corporation Bank ATM in the Rang Bhavan lane, close to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (VT), where top police officers Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar and Ashok Kamte were killed, along with three other police officers, became a shrine for many months after 26/11, where people left candles, flowers, bouquets, wreaths, letters for the police officers. Terrorists Ajmal Kasab and Abu Ismail hid in the bushes near this ATM and when they saw the police jeep approaching they stepped out and shot the policemen with their AK-47s.

Post 26/11: Maruti Phad, a driver for the medical education department, was caught in the crossfire at Rang Bhavan lane on the night of 26/11. He lost two of his fingers of his right hand and received an injury in his stomach but was lucky to escape alive.

Post 26/11: One of the inflatable dinghies recovered from Machhimar Nagar, that had been used by the terrorists.

Post 26/11: Kuber, the Gujarat-licensed fishing trawler the 10 Pakistani terrorists hijacked to sail into Mumbai, was towed by the police or the coast guard and docked at Bhau Cha Dhaka wharf at Mazgaon, central Mumbai. In this picture it is the third boat from the front whit a white roof and a brown cabin.

Post 26/11: A portrait of Constable Tukaram Omble who died November 26 at Marine Drive capturing terrorist Ajmal Kasab in his home at the police quarters.

Post 26/11: Chand Pasha, brother of Pir Pasha, the waiter who was killed at Leopold Cafe, relates the circumstances surrounding this brother's killing by terrorists on November 26.

Post 26/11: A fireman at Byculla Fire Brigade recounts what it took to bring the fire in control at Taj Mahal Palace and Tower.

Post 26/11: Head constable Jillu Yadav recounts how he returned fire, with just a rifl,e at terrorists Ajmal Kasab and Abu Ismail at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus on November 26.

Post 26/11: Shamu and Viju Chauhan outside Cama and Albless Hospital with their baby girl nicknamed Goli, who was born while the terrorists were attacking the hospital.