Their actions, which left bodies strewn in the city's largest train station, five-star hotels, a synagogue, a cafe and a hospital -- were described as 'coordinated terrorist attacks'. But the men themselves were not called terrorists.'

He reprinted a comment posted on the newspaper's website by a reader: 'I am so offended as to why the NY Times and a number of other news organisations are calling the perpetrators 'militants'. 'Murderers, or terrorists perhaps but militants? Is your PC going to get so absurd that you will refer to them as 'freedom fighters?''

Hoyt noted that the Mumbai terror attacks 'posed a familiar semantic issue for Times editors: what to call people who pursue political, religious, territorial, or unidentifiable goals through violence on civilians'.

He referred to a two-page memo written by James Bennet, the Times's Jerusalem bureau chief during 2001-04 and now the editor of the Atlantic, on the use of 'terrorism' and 'terrorist'.

The memo, still cited by NYT editors though the newspaper has 'no formal policy on the terms', says it was easy to call certain egregious acts terrorism 'and have the whole world agree with you'.

'The problem, he said, was where to stop before every stone-throwing Palestinian was called a terrorist and the paper was making a political statement,' noted Hoyt.

'I do not think it is possible to write a set of hard and fast rules for the T-words, and I think The Times is both thoughtful about them and maybe a bit more conservative in their use than I would be.

'My own broad guideline: If it looks as if it was intended to sow terror and it shocks the conscience, whether it is planes flying into the World Trade Center, gunmen shooting up Mumbai, or a political killer in a little girl's bedroom, I'd call it terrorism -- by terrorists.'

But the NYT and others seem to be waiting for more evidence as far as the Nov 26 attacks are concerned.

(Ashish Mehta can be contacted at ashish.m@ians.in)