For CNN personality Fareed Zakaria, terror hit home a year ago. Literally.

Also the editor of Newsweek International, the host of the Sunday program "Fareed Zakaria GPS" recalls the violence that struck one of India's major cities in the HBO documentary "Terror in Mumbai," airing Thursday, Nov. 19.

Mumbai native Zakaria narrates the American version of the British-made program, detailing the wave of attacks staged over three days. The primary rail station and two hotels were among sites left in ruins, with more than 170 fatalities and 300 casualties also resulting.

"This was India's 9/11," Zakaria maintains. "I don't think one needs to qualify that too much, except to say that since this happened after 9/11, it didn't have quite the same shock value. India had had some experience with terrorism before, but also, India is a different country.

"It's a vast, chaotic place, and it's never had that sense of invulnerability that America had. Its response, in some ways, was more measured. (Indian authorities) spent a lot of time and energy focusing on what they did wrong, rather than on what the bad guys did right."

Indeed, "Terror in Mumbai" producer-director Dan Reed doesn't shy away from showing how India's police responded – or didn't – to the crisis.

"You can tell that the hotels were well-run, with good staff trying their best," Zakaria reflects, "then you get to the police, and it's just clear those guys were out of their depth. That's part of the tragedy; who knows how much they could have averted? There was no procedure for dealing with this stuff."

Along with firsthand accounts by survivors, "Terror in Mumbai" includes plentiful recordings of the gunmen and those they were reporting to.

"You just listen to those tapes, and it's riveting," Zakaria says. "You really get a 360-degree view of terrorism in a way that I've never seen before. A reconstruction of terrorist attacks is usually done through the police or the victims, but never the terrorists."