TORONTO –India executed the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai terror attack that killed 166 people on Wednesday, and one Canadian survivor is making his relief public.
Toronto native Raynor Burke was in the Taj Mahal Hotel lobby when he says a man with a machine gun entered and opened fire, according to a 2008 article in The Daily Beast. Burke ran toward the hotel’s courtyard, but returned after the sight of dead bodies and “blood everywhere.”
Back in the lobby, he saw guests led into the basement by the gunmen, so he ran upstairs, dove through a window and landed in a pile of trash where he hid for over an hour, according to his account. He forced his way into a cab, and took shelter at a religious society, and contacted his friends and family in Canada to tell them he was okay.
Four years later, Burke says in a Facebook post that he received a call from Mumbai telling him that the last gunman from the attack was put to death.
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“The voice made no introduction: ‘If you care to listen, he is being dealt the final blow now.’ The man I knew as Black Tshirt, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, was executed,” said the post on Burke’s wall.
In a phone interview with Global News, Burke said he felt relieved, “almost like kind of a demon has been put down that I knew existed out there…it actually gave me a little hope.”
Burke’s post continues to describe his life since the incident: that he’s been waking up “screaming, sometimes in a pool of sweat” for years.
“I left Canada a normal optimistic dude, bent on some yoga, and maybe making a change,” he writes. “In one short night, the lives of many were ended. For those who were unlucky enough to survive, permanent pain, scars, and memories have scorched over everything that was before.”
He says after travelling around the world, he’s felt endangered even as a Canadian, and after what happened in Mumbai, he came back “feeling definitely less charitable, and for the first time, feeling the divide between people.”
Burke warns that the world is getting “meaner” and that if we “fail to take action,” the Royal York or Fairmont hotels could be next.
He writes that after years of “reflection, seclusion and hard work” he has bounced back and regained his voice – “the best revenge.”
In the post, Burke explains his silence is over, “for to do nothing is to lose the war against extremism.”
He explained the post was meant to show his support for Canadian troops, and urge people to become aware of what’s happening in places like the Middle East.
“Sometimes you make a change in the world, and sometimes, the world makes a change in you…I hereby serve notice to the grenade flingers of the world. You have killed my compassion. I will be silent no more.”
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