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Companies review security after attacks
Foreign companies in India are reassessing their security to cope with changing threats after the three-day rampage and siege by militants in Mumbai last week, risk consultants said on Friday.
New Delhi: Foreign companies in India are reassessing their security to cope with changing threats after the three-day rampage and siege by militants in Mumbai last week, risk consultants said on Friday.
Foreigners appear to have been a target for 10 militants who attacked two luxury hotels and other landmarks in the financial hub, killing 171 people including six Americans.
India was seen as a relatively safe place to do business until last week, risk consultants said, despite a slew of bomb attacks on Indian cities this year that killed hundreds.
The assault on two five-star hotels, usually seen as among the most secure places to stay, has thrown the usual security equation into disarray, analysts said.
"These attacks have dumbfounded everyone," said Steven Dunn, director of Dynamiq, an Australian-owned security and risk firm.
As fear spreads in the aftermath of the attacks, foreign companies are hastily upgrading security, with measures ranging from hiring more security personnel, beefing up surveillance and moving their employees to lower-profile locations.
Militants short-list targets that are easiest to strike, and no company wants to be an easy target, Dunn said.
'Still reacting'
"People are still reacting to the panic and the paranoia of multinationals and their employees," said Robert Grenier, the chairman for global security consulting at Kroll.
Hundreds of people, many of them Western businessmen and tourists, were trapped or taken hostage by gunmen inside the 105-year-old Taj Mahal hotel and the Trident-Oberoi hotel.
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