Mumbai Muslims decry atrocity and avert retribution, for now

As the bloody terrorist siege ended in Mumbai, 60-year-old Ibrahim Tai, a lean, pious man with salt-and-pepper stubble, didn't hunker down in a Muslim ghetto, fearing a backlash from Hindu fundamentalists.

Instead he went on a crusade of his own, determined to deny the nine slain terrorists the martyrdom they sought: he reached out to Bada Kabrastan, the largest graveyard in Mumbai, urging officials there not to bury the terrorists.

Almost immediately, Muslim organisations across the city unanimously declared that Muslim cemeteries had no space for those who orchestrated the attacks, which claimed the lives of nearly 200.

'The ideology of the terrorists is inconsistent with the tenets of Islam,' said Mr Tai, who is the president of the Muslim Council Trust, a non-governmental organisation. 'And so they aren't Muslims and don't deserve a burial in Muslim graveyards.'

As India began pointing accusatory fingers at a pack of Islamic terrorists based in Pakistan, it was widely feared that the spotlight of suspicion would inevitably turn to Mumbai's Muslim community. With nerves frazzled and public emotions heightened after the attacks, which began on November 26, people dreaded the worst in some Muslim ghettoes around Mumbai: a sectarian assault from Hindu fundamentalists and anti-terrorism agencies.

But, after almost two weeks, those fears seemed to have subsided, said Mr Tai, who lives in the bustling back lanes of Bhendi Bazaar - a grubby suburb infamously called 'Mini Pakistan' because of its Muslim majority.