We need Obama's catchline: Change

The jihadi onslaught in Mumbai promises to turn the security system of the hospitality industry on its head. A new balance between courteousness and security will have to be struck, especially in five-star hotels which hosts a clientele that includes business honchos, world leaders, diplomats and other public personalities.

The new security paraphernalia may cover baggage screening , subtle profiling and a much stronger security staff which may constantly need to interact with the local police for intelligence updates regarding threat perception.
Hotels may also need to maintain a blueprint of their layout for ready use in the event of an emergency.

A contingency plan, detailing the exit routes and rooms that could be used to lock in guests until help arrives, would have to be drawn up and shared with the hotel staff. An orientation of the staff in handling emergency situations may now include evacuation of guests and dealing with hostage crisis.

Not only this, a relook may be taken at the CCTV systems, particularly the 24-hour surveillance of their feed at the CCTV control room for tracking any suspicious movement at the hotel. The inadequacy of the surveillance systems at hotels is best demonstrated by the finding of the intelligence agencies that the Lashker-e-Toiba attackers behind the Mumbai strike had conducted a thorough recce of each of their targets, including the Taj and Trident-Oberoi hotels, well in advance and were familiar with every nook and cranny of the two buildings.

In contrast, NSG commandos were disadvantaged and had to depend on occasional briefings by hotel staff and, in most cases, their own instincts while countering and chasing terrorists. The reconnaissance done by terror outfits of attack sites and detailed planning has come to the fore time and again during interrogation of arrested terror operatives.

Fahim Ahmed Ansari, an LeT terrorist arrested in February, 2008, by UP police for the terror attack on a CRPF camp in Ramgarh, had disclosed that he had carried out a reconnaissance exercise at the Oberoi and Bombay Stock Exchange along with his accomplices Imran Shehzad from PoK and Mohammad Farooq Bhatti from Pakistan���s Punjab province.

The trio were tasked by their bosses across the border to unleash a terror attack at BSE. The owner of a paper-envelope manufacturing business, Ansari, who was also associated with Simi, was allegedly drafted into LeT during a visit to Dubai in 2003.

In end, 2007, he visited Mumbai and stayed there for two weeks. He secured a driving licence under the alias Samir Sheikh and enrolled himself as a student in a computer institute near BSE. All three BSE assault-team volunteers held Pakistani passports, which they presumably hoped would enable them to escape by catching flights through Nepal.

Fidayeen commandos like Shehzad and Bhatti received special training to storm the gates of premises using grenades, following it up with indiscriminate assault rifle fire. Ever since the arrest of the fidayeen unit, Maharashtra police officials have been interacting with private business houses in Mumbai to sensitise them on terror threats and the need to update their security systems.

Slain ATS chief Hemant Karkare met security heads of private concerns on several occasions in the recent past. However, none of Mumbai���s major hotels , malls and cinema theatres invested in equipment to scan guests and their luggage for weapons and explosives, or barrier systems that would have allowed isolation of terrorists in a small part of a building once an attack had begun.

Their security systems remain confined to searching cars at the gate, even as no suspicion whatsoever is raised on the luggage and bags that come in. It was only on Thursday morning ��� by which time, both Taj and Trident-Oberoi were under terror siege ��� that ITC sent out an alert to its hotels asking them to enhance security.