The attacks lasted until Indian security forces regained control over all of the attack sites.
For a university that boasts upward of 2,000 international students, a vast majority of whom are Indian, these recent terror attacks that resulted in over 85 deaths and more than 290 injuries have hit closer to home for some Tech students than most would realize.
To both the large number of Indian students and faculty members, Tech President Charles Steger expressed his condolences in a letter released Dec. 2. He expressed "our deepest sympathies to the people of India," while calling the events "cowardly and senseless violence."
Rohit Rangnekar, a second-year grad student in electrical engineering who hails from Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, explained his take on the events.
"Bombay (Mumbai) has been a target for many of these terrorist incidents for many, many years, since '93," Rangnekar said. "And I know that most people were personally affected by these incidents, although not for this particular one, it has been a soft target quite often, so it has affected all of us quite deeply."
The recent events in Mumbai have begun to shake people up even more, perhaps because of the sheer audacity of attackers. Multiple tourist sites were targeted, hundreds of people were injured, and one of the capital city's most flourishing districts was thrown into chaos. And this new wave of attacks differs very much from anything that India has seen in the past.
"This incident has really shocked everyone and the reason why it shocked everyone is because of the way that these terrorists carried out this attack," Rangnekar said. "Until now they had all been individual attacks; they would attack a tourist location and then just disappear. But this time they came out and just started firing at people, and I think that's why this attack has caused so much attention."
The sheer shock of the events in November were enough to send an entire country reeling, including all of the students that India has sent all over the world. It was these students who were left to wonder about the safety of friends and family back in Mumbai.
"Absolutely people are shaken up," Rangnekar said. "I mean people are now just questioning the reasons why this happened. This was on a different level completely."
It was a first-year grad student in science and tech studies, Sumitra Nair, with close ties with the district itself, who felt the weight of what was happening as she watched the images of her old haunts flash across CNN.
"I was working in that place," Nair said. "It represents home. All of the places that they attacked were so familiar. It's where we used to go out on weekends. It just became so visually close to home."
The district held many tourist locations, but was also a major commercial district.
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