5:51pm UK, Sunday December 21, 2008

Alex Crawford in Mumbai

Less than a month after the terror attacks in Mumbai, the 105-year-old Taj Mahal Hotel has reopened.

Lights back on at the Taj Mahal hotel

Gunmen took scores of guests hostage inside the hotel and battled for around 60 hours with paramilitaries and commandoes before the siege was finally ended on November 26.

Now, just over three weeks later, the new wing of the hotel known as the Taj Mahal Tower has opened its doors to customers again.

But the older, heritage wing of the hotel – where most of the battle took place – is likely to take anything from six months to a year to renovate.

“We can be hurt but we will never fall,” Ratan Tata, chairman of the Taj owner Tata Group said.

The Trident Oberoi hotel – also hit in the attacks – has also reopened.

Again, the more damaged part of the hotel will remain shut for perhaps six to seven months.

But the symbolic opening of parts of both five-star establishments is being viewed as a defiant gesture against terrorism.

“To reopen the Taj with such speed, but with no loss of attention to detail, shows our resolve to commemorate all the innocent and brave people who lost their lives during the terrorist attacks,” said Raymond Bickson, of the Indian Hotels Company.

It is a new, more wary Mumbai which has emerged in the wake of the violence.

The railway station where two gunmen ran amok now has paramilitary police patrolling and new scanning equipment to screen customers before they enter the terminus.

The bullet holes where the gunmen strafed the cafes, coffee houses and food counters are still there as reminders of what happened that night – but life has to go on.

One woman outside the Taj hotel told Sky News: “We cannot let a small group of people confine us to our homes.”

She was quivering with emotion and defiance. And she is not alone.

The attacks shocked this city to the core – perhaps the whole of India.

It has been called the country’s 9/11 and it has changed the country.

Armed guards and sandbags are positioned outside most hotels in Mumbai now. In the seaside resort of Goa, the authorities have set up similar guard posts on the beach.

Travellers to the sub-continent have cancelled their holidays in their hundreds in the lead-up to Christmas.

Relations with neighbouring Pakistan have been fraught and fractured, as details emerge of how the trail of the attacks leads back to the old enemy.

Andrew Scutts is a British tourist who bucked the trend and decided to go ahead with his holiday to India.

He told Sky as he stood in the shadow of the Taj Hotel: “I figured there probably wasn’t a safer place in the world right now than here – just after the attacks.

“We thought it was important to come and support the economy,” he said.

Nearby, the Leopold Café where the terrorists first struck is packed with tourists and some locals.

The management has left the bullet holes and the battle scars are frequently photographed by curious customers who view eating at the restaurant as a show of solidarity against terrorism.

“Mumbai has done exactly the right thing,” said one American tourist.

“They have bounced right back and shown they will carry on and that’s just what they should do.”