All Things Considered, December 19, 2008 · (via NPR)
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they were divided after achieving independence from Britain in 1947, and their relations have been marked by mutual mistrust. Several years of peacemaking were derailed last month when militants, who India alleges were backed by Pakistan, launched attacks in Mumbai, killing more than 160 people.
A new generation of Indians and Pakistanis are now dealing with that fragile relationship. Many of them, like Sonia Faleiro, a 31-year-old Indian novelist and journalist, and Pakistani filmmaker Mehreen Jabbar, 37, who lives in New York, have traveled to each other’s countries, but say they understand why mistrust persists. Read more…
BEFORE THE ATTACKS:
The drama started weeks before the terrorist attacks – at a Jewish
residential complex In Mumbai run by the Chabad-Lubavitch ultra-orthodox
movement.
From CBC News (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/11/28/mumbai-attacks.html
“In a telephone interview with CBC News from outside the centre, freelance
journalist Arun Asthhana said there are reports that some of the militants
had stayed at a guest house there for up to 15 days before the attacks.
“They had a huge mass of ammunition, arms and food there,” Asthhana said.
That some stayed there before the attacks seem no longer in question. Later
news reports state that the terrorists came to Nariman House posing as
Malaysian students and were given lodging. Why Ultra-orthodox Jews would
give lodging to these unknown Malaysian Muslim students is baffling; they
could have been ‘terrorists’. After all they did not know them.
However, it is well known that those housing quarters are rented only to
religious Jews passing through Mumbai, so much so that the Indian Police
wanted to know why they were rented to non-Jews in this instance. Read more…
