Details Revealed Involving Negotiations Made During The Nariman House Terror Attack In 2008

by CrownHeights.info

Details have emerged revealing Chabad’s attempts to negotiate with the terrorists inside the Nariman Chabad House in Mumbai during the tragic attack in 2008.

P.V. Viswanath, an Indian American convert to Judaism, had volunteered to interpret for Rabbi Levi Shemtov in an attempt to negotiate with the terrorists from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terrorist group.

“He was going to do whatever he was going to do, or had already done,” Viswanath was reported as having said in an interview. “So if the plan was to kill everybody, that was what he was going to do. Our talking to him … I don’t think would have changed events in any way.”

According to Viswanath, when Shemtov called the mobile phone of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg HYD during the crisis, an Urdu-speaker answered. Negotiations began, but did not progress far as the eerily calm terrorist made demands to speak with an Indian official and return of a hostage.

Ultimately, Gavriel and his wife Rivky HYD were murdered by the terrorists along with other guests in the Nariman House. Their son Moishe was saved by his nanny, who was able to escape with him after hiding Moishe.