October 2008: Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai Receives Warning of Possible Attack, Increases Security

The Taj Majal Palace & Towers hotel in Mumbai is warned about the possibility of an attack, according to Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, which owns the hotel. The hotel takes the warning seriously and heightens security measures. Tata will state, “People couldn’t park their cars in the portico where you had to go through a metal detector.” Tata will also minimize the usefulness of the warning received, saying: “[I]f I look at what we had—which all of us complained about—it could not have stopped what took place. They didn’t come through that entrance.” [CNN, 11/30/2008]
Other Witness to Heightened Security States It Will Be Lowered before Attacks - A. Vaidyanathan, an economist and member of the Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India who is a frequent guest at the hotel, stays there this month and will be there when the attacks begin on November 26 (see November 26-29, 2008). Following the attacks, Vaidyanathan will tell the The Hindu newspaper: “The last time I went, last month, there was very tight security. You could not get into the [Taj] Palace. There is an entrance there, which is closed. At the entrance to the tower, they had two-level security. First, when you enter the open parking, where the cars are parked, you had a very heavy metal frame, your baggage was searched.… At the entrance of the foyer, there was another metal detector and you were personally searched and so on.” He will return in November (see Before November 26, 2008) and notice these security measures are no longer in place: “This time I noticed it had gone. We could go straight to the Palace,” he will later recall. [The Hindu, 11/29/2008]