Mumbai still vulnerable one year after terror attack

The walls that the rockets blew out have not been repaired, and the plaster is a dense scattershot of bullet holes. Dozens of holes, blasted by grenades, pockmark the linoleum floors. One year after the terror attack that left 166 people dead, the Chabad House - a once-popular site with Jewish travellers where six foreigners were killed - remains scarred, still, and quiet.
In part, that silence is a symptom of how much remains unchanged since 10 militants with assault rifles fanned out across Mumbai last November 26, attacking hotels, a train station and other targets, paralysing India's financial capital and shocking the country.
While Mumbai's large hotels and important business centres have paid richly to improve their own security, many worry that the city as a whole remains vulnerable to another assault from Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based group blamed for the attack, or other assailants. While India is trying the lone surviving gunman, Ajmal Kasab, Lashkar-e-Taiba's leaders remain free in Pakistan.
"Nothing has changed to alter the vulnerabilities of Mumbai," said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. "The only institutions that can protect against terrorism are state institutions. They are failing to do so. As a result private institutions are being forced to spend large amounts of money on largely ineffective security."
He blames the failure to beef up national security on weak-willed politicians, some of whom are corrupt and benefit from lax policing. Despite crucial steps the national government has taken to co-ordinate intelligence gathering, deterrence on the ground has not increased, he said. Since last year's attacks, authorities have neutralised 13 Islamist terror cells in India, right in line with the average since 1998, he said.
Today, the front of the Taj Mahal hotel, where 32 were killed, is sealed. All visitors must pass through a narrow aperture, which on a recent afternoon was watched by seven men. All bags are screened, and the entire property is ringed with barricades and guards. The Oberoi Group has spent $83,000 on new baggage scanners, metal detectors and patrolmen at its Trident hotel, where 33 people were killed. Meanwhile, a single guard talking on a mobile phone monitored the wide main entrance of the city's Chhatrapati Shivaji train station, where 58 died and 104 were injured.