Tragedy hits home

A Singaporean lady, Lo Hwei Yen, 28, was killed in the hostage situation at the Oberoi Trident Hotel in Mumbai last Thursday. Her body was found on the 19th floor of the hotel. She was in Mumbai for a one-day seminar, and was understood to have been shot in the head and abdomen. She was just married last year and leaves behind her husband, family and friends to mourn her.

I do not know her personally (but I found out she went to the same school as me). Her death was senseless.

The Mumbai terrorists didn't come to negotiate in a 'no surrender' attack. This scenario made it hard for the Indian authorities to predict what was the next move. They never demanded the release of prisoners or even mentioned the Middle East conflict.

Others killed
A Brooklyn-based rabbi and his wife were killed in the siege on a Jewish center in Mumbai. Their son Moshe, who turns 2 on Saturday, was rescued by a nanny and has been handed over to his mother's parents.

The decomposed body of Malaysian, Hemalatha Kassippillai, was found on the sixth floor of the 565-room Taj Mahal Palace hotel. The sixth floor bore the brunt of the violent terrorist attacks that burned down the entire floor. The terrorists made two of the hotel's sixth floor rooms as their headquarters.

Staying on the sixth floor was Malaysia New Straits Times's consulting editor, Sabina Sehgal Saikia, she too was killed in the attacks. The wife of the hotel's general manager and his two sons also perished in the fire that gutted the sixth floor. Another luckless guest on the sixth floor was Greek tycoon Andreas Liveras, who was slain by terrorist bullets.

Senseless...