Washington: India had made clear to the US that it would not exercise restrain in case of a second attack on its soil aft-er the 2008 Mumbai assault by Pakistan-based terrorists, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says.
“They made it clear to me that there would not be such restraint in the event of a second attack,” Clinton writes in her book Hard Choices, referring to her meeting with the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
“She and Dr Singh explained how hard it had been to show restraint toward Pakistan after the coordinated terrorist bombings in Mumbai the prior November,” she writes.
Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba’s terrorists carried out coordinated attacks at several places in Mumbai, killing 166 people, including five Americans in November 2008.
“Indians referred to the attack on November 26, 2008, as 26/11, in an echo of our own 9/11,” Clinton writes.
“In a show of solidarity with the people of India, I chose to stay at the elegant old Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, which had been one of the sites of the gruesome attack,” writes the 66-year-old in her book that hit the stores on Tuesday.
Clinton, who traveled to India in 2009, said that by staying there and paying her respects at the memorial, she wanted to send the message that Mumbai was undeterred and open for business.
