THE longest terror siege in India has ended, and details of how the brazen attack was planned and carried out have emerged.

Still, questions linger.

And one important question people are asking is: Could the attack have been stopped and the bloodbath avoided?

Going by several reports in the Indian media, the answer seems to be yes.

Newspapers say there were at least three chances to foil the 10 gunmen who wreaked havoc in Mumbai last Wednesday, killing more than 170 people and wounding about 300 in a 60-hour siege.

Missed chance No 1:

On 19 Nov, seven days before the attacks, an Indian intelligence agency circulated top-secret information about a planned attack on Mumbai from the sea, reported the Indian Express.

The newspaper quoted sources who said that while the day of the actual attack was not specified, the attack was to take place very soon.

Later, on 25 Nov, another date not stated in the Indian Express report was mentioned.

The tip-off also said that the terrorists could arrive in an Indian fishing trawler.

The information was passed on to the National Security Council Secretariat and Joint Intelligence Council, and then to the navy and the Coast Guard.

The state authorities in Maharashtra (of which Mumbai is the capital city) were also informed, but no one took the information seriously enough to do anything.

Some dismissed it as yet another terror alert that would lead to nothing, while others said the warning was not specific enough.

The tip-off was not that far off the mark.

Azam Amir Kasav, the sole surviving gunman captured by Indian troops, said in his confession that the band of terrorists had hijacked the Kuber, an Indian fishing trawler on 22 Nov.

The vessel reached the Mumbai coast on 26 Nov.

Missed chance No 2:

Did the Indian Navy and Coast Guard allow a freighter carrying the gunmen to slip past them?

Azam claimed the vessel had dropped them off at the Mumbai coast.

According to a Mumbai newspaper, Mid Day, a major naval exercise called the Defence of Gujarat took place in Indian waters from 17 to 22 Nov.

The aim was to track all vessels and check their identities. In fact, it was a mock drill to hunt down Al-Qaeda and Pakistani vessels.

But it seems that once vessels enter Indian waters, they are not checked. More than 1,000 fishing boats from as far as Pakistan enter the Mumbai harbour and most of the men on board do not have proper papers.

Missed chance No 3:

The alert of a possible terrorist attack was not just that it would happen via the sea routes - there was also a warning that Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel was a target.

That prompted the hotel to temporarily beef up security, Mr Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group that owns The Taj, said in a CNN interview.

The Taj was one of two luxury hotels taken over by terrorists last Wednesday night.

Mr Tata said: 'It's ironic that we did have such a warning and we did have some (security) measures.'

He would not elaborate on the nature of the warning, but said that security measures - such as making guests walk through a metal detector and not allowing cars to park in the hotel's portico - were eased shortly before the attack.

But, Mr Tata added, even if the measures had been in place, they could not have stopped the gunmen.

'They knew what they were doing, and they did not go through the front. All our (security) arrangements are in the front. They planned everything.'

Not like previous attacks

Mr Tata said government agencies had been 'very complacent' as 'we've really not had this kind of terrorism inflicted upon us'.

Indeed, last Wednesday's attack is unlike the ones that locals in Mumbai have seen before.

Mr Joe George, 36, who works in the retail industry, told The New Paper over the phone from Mumbai: 'Living in Mumbai, we are not new to terror attacks. But previously, there was never a face to the whole thing, and the terror would end in a matter of minutes to half an hour. A bomb would go off, people would clean up, and life would go on.

'This time, it (took) more than 24 hours (for) the terror (to be) over. There was intelligence that went into these attacks. There were hostages involved.'

Over the past 15 years, Mumbai has been hit by several militant attacks. The most deadly one came in July 2006 when train blasts killed more than 200people. But this one seems to have left residents very shaken.

Mr A Nair, 40, who works in the service industry, said: 'Residents are now feeling that our security forces are not strong enough to take care of our city.

'Emotions are running high among the people. We are frustrated, angry and helpless. I'm definitely rattled. It's punctured my confidence in the security of this city.'

Additional reporting by Genevieve Jiang