Overnight in Mumbai (aka Bombay), India a group of extremists launched a series of shooting rampages in the southern part of the city. One target in particular was the Taj Mahal Palace, a luxury hotel frequented by businessmen and government officials. The news reports are still quite confused and the details of fatalities, wounded, and possible hostages changes rapidly. It’s a very serious, very sad situation.

The group claiming responsible has launched other attacks, but nothing to date on this scale. Their tactic is to load themselves up with guns and ammunition, go someplace and start firing indescriminately until they run out of ammunition or are killed by the police. If still alive, they then attempt to escape so they can strike again another day.

In my last job I had the opportunity to make several business trips to the Philippines. Muslim separatists have on a couple of occasions launched attacks against hotels and businesses. As a result, armed guards are deployed at the entrances to malls, banks, and hotels where packages are checked and people are screened for guns and explosives. I’m sure that these guards know that if an attack is going to happen, they will take the first bullets. Fortunately that hasn’t happened, yet. However, these kinds of incidents have a tendency to escalate. The next group will learn from this incident and the next one will be more severe.

Years ago when I was working for TRW Automotive Group, I was part of a group establishing a plant in Pamplona, Spain and over an eighteen month period made a dozen or more business trips to Pamplona. At that time the Basque separatist group ETA was quite active in that region. Terrorist activity takes money and their primary fund raising activity was to kidnap foreign businessmen and hold them for ransom. To make sure that the employers knew that the ETA was serious, they usually included a body part (a finger or a toe or an ear) from the hostage in the ransom demand. Consequently, TRW felt it very important to train their business travelers on how to avoid being kidnapped and how to protect themselves if their hotel was invaded.

Some of that training was pretty graphic. For about a year before each business trip to Spain I had to go through an hour’s refresher training. It must have been effective, because no TRW businessmen were kidnapped, either in Spain or in Italy where another group was emplying the same tactic. That training is still quite fresh in my memory.

However, it didn’t address completely what happened in Mumbai last night. A gunmen came into the lobby of the hotel through one entrance and began firing. Those in the lobby began moving (quickly and in a panic) towards the other entrance / exit whereupon another gunman came in that door and began firing. Complete confusion and panic ensued and many more people became fatalities as a result.

I wonder if I would react better than that? Would I go where the crowd wasn’t going?

My thoughts and prayers are with those in Mumbai and their families. It is a serious tragedy which will change life there further constraining what innocent, normal people can do and where they can be. It will aslo surely result in innocent people being railroaded, as happened to Star Simpson at Boston’s Logan Airport a year ago. Craziness reigns supreme on all sides. Sometimes I think you and I are the only sane people around (and sometimes I worry about you…).