Witness Relives Shooting at Mumbai Chabad House

MUMBAI [AFP] — A man on Wednesday told an Indian court trying a Pakistani national over the 2008 Mumbai attacks how he escaped with his life after confronting two heavily-armed extremists with just a bamboo stick.

Security guard Kamal Singh said he rushed to the Nariman House Jewish cultural centre in the Colaba district of south Mumbai on the night of November 26 last year after hearing shots.

“I mustered courage and entered the building with a bamboo stick. On reaching the first floor I saw two persons perched on the second floor facing in the opposite direction,” he told the court trying Mohammed Ajmal Kasab.

“I inquired from them what was the matter. One of them turned towards me. He was holding a gun. The other looked at me and said ‘Kafir aa gaya’ (idol worshipper has come).”

The Press Trust of India news agency said Singh, who worked nearby, recounted in evidence how the extremists opened fire, but he ducked and managed to escape the bullets, climbing down the staircase to safety.

The prosecution says the two gunmen were among 10 who were trained, equipped and financed to attack India’s financial and entertainment capital by the banned Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Kasab, 22, was the only one to survive the attacks, which targeted luxury hotels, a popular tourist restaurant and the city’s main railway station, as well as the Jewish centre, run by the orthodox Chabad Lubovitch movement.

Eight people at the centre, including the rabbi and his wife, died. A total of 166 people were killed in total and more than 300 others wounded.

Kasab faces a string of charges, including “waging war against India”, murder and attempted murder. He could face the death penalty if convicted.