'Armed police would not fire back. - I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera'

From ANI

London/Mumbai, Nov.29: British daily --The Independent - has revealed how a newspaper photographer took an astonishing picture while hiding inside a train carriage as gunfire erupted all around him.

Sebastian D'Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, whose offices are just opposite the city's Chhatrapati Shivaji station, heard the gunfire erupt and ran towards the terminus.

"I ran into the first carriage of one of the trains on the platform to try and get a shot but couldn't get a good angle, so I moved to the second carriage and waited for the gunmen to walk by," he told The Independent.

"They were shooting from waist height and fired at anything that moved. I briefly had time to take a couple of frames using a telephoto lens. I think they saw me taking photographs but they didn't seem to care."

He said the gunmen were terrifyingly professional, making sure at least one of them was able to fire their rifle while the other reloaded.

By the time he managed to capture the killer on camera, D'Souza had already seen two gunmen calmly stroll across the station concourse shooting both civilians and policemen, many of whom, he said, were armed but did not fire back.

"I first saw the gunmen outside the station. With their rucksacks and Western clothes they looked like backpackers, not terrorists, but they were very heavily armed and clearly knew how to use their rifles," he said.

But what angered D'Souza were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back.

"There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said.

"At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

As the gunmen fired at policemen taking cover across the street, D'Souza realised a train was pulling into the station unaware of the horror within.

"I couldn't believe it. We rushed to the platform and told everyone to head towards the back of the station. Those who were older and couldn't run, we told them to stay put."

The militants returned inside the station and headed towards a rear exit towards Chowpatty Beach.

"I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera," he said.


Copyright Asian News International/DailyIndia.com