Mumbai residents try to return to routines

The trains were reasonably packed, traffic was beginning to resemble its normally chaotic self and shoppers eased back into the stores, even if many still weren't buying a whole lot.

"Sure I'm scared," said Roshan Tengra, a fiftysomething homemaker in a purple sari, heading into a Bank of India branch a few blocks from the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel where the most protracted militant attack occurred. "I haven't been out of my house for three days. But we have to start our lives again. Whatever else can we do?"

Mumbai and much of India has seen its confidence dented by a meticulously planned attack that started late Wednesday. Among the 10 targets were two luxury hotels, a prominent cafe, a Jewish center and a railroad station. When the last militant was killed almost 60 hours later, more than 170 people had died and hundreds were injured.

On Monday, shopping took on political overtones for people feeling a deep-seated anger at what had befallen their city.

"I want to shop just to show I'm not afraid," said Aparna Malvia, 28, a research scholar, looking at combs and accessories in a street stall in the Colaba Causeway shopping area. "If they dare, let them show themselves now."

She and others joined commentators and Indian celebrities in slamming their politicians and government officials for their response to the attack.

An infuriated Malvia said she would torture the attackers herself if she ever got her hands on them.

"Of course I believe in an eye for an eye," she said. "Human rights are for human beings. I don't think these guys are human beings -- who could kill children and attack hospitals like this? They're animals."

The Leopold Cafe, where nearly a dozen people died when a pair of attackers threw a grenade and emptied two magazines of AK-47 bullets into the dining room, reopened on Monday and a huge crowd showed up.

Diners, well-wishers and the media crowded narrow spaces between tables, and more people peeked in from the sidewalk, gawking at the large bullet holes in the plate glass window.