Mumbai remembers, voices anger 12 months after attacks

One year on from the deadly Islamist militant attacks in Mumbai, the city remembered its dead in solemn prayers and candlelit vigils, with public anger at the perpetrators still in evidence.

On a lamppost outside the Leopold Cafe, a popular tourist haunt where eight people were killed, a poster showed a gallows and a noose.

"Hang Kasab," it read, referring to Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only one of the 10 gunmen to survive on November 26 last year and who is currently on trial in the city.

Down the backstreets of Colaba at the landmark Gateway of India monument, opposite the luxury Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel, where 31 people died in a 60-hour siege, some in the crowd called for Kasab to be executed without trial.

"We have lost a lot. We have no words to express our feelings. Every Indian is very angry," said one woman as she left flowers outside the hotel.

The sentiment is a common one in India, where even some lawyers refused to defend the 22-year-old Pakistani national because of the gravity of the attacks.

Elsewhere, life continued as normal in Mumbai: cricket games were played on the Oval Maidan sports ground, taxi drivers muttered expletives about the traffic, and commuters rushed to and from work.

But at the attack sites, a steady stream of mourners mixed with curious visitors and locals.

The Leopold Cafe was packed with tourists. Staff, who lost two colleagues, wore black armbands over their red polo shirts; commemorative mugs were on sale.

At the Taj, where bosses said they wanted to treat the first anniversary like any other working day, a private memorial service for staff was scheduled in the evening.

Candles were lit outside the Trident-Oberoi hotels and a black marble plaque unveiled in tribute to the 35 victims who died there. The Trident reopened fully on December 21 last year, but the adjoining Oberoi is still closed.

The hotel is expected to reopen in the first quarter of next year, said Devendra Bharma, executive vice-president, of the Oberoi Hotels and Resorts Mumbai.

At the city's main railway station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), a blood donation session was organised instead of a high-profile commemoration. CST was the scene of the bloodiest episode of the attacks, with 52 dead.

Nariman House, until last year a little-known Jewish cultural and religious centre run by the orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement, was staging a memorial service.

Six people died there, including the rabbi who ran it and his pregnant wife. Their parents flew in from Israel to attend the event.