At least 80 people were killed in a series of attacks apparently aimed at tourists in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, on Wednesday night, with television channels saying Westerners were being held hostage at two five-star hotels.
At least 250 people have been wounded, police said.
There was also an attack on the Cafe Leopold, perhaps the most famous restaurant and hang-out for tourists in the city, and at hospitals and railway stations.
”I guess they were after foreigners, because they were asking for British or American passports,” said Rakesh Patel, a British witness who lives in Hong Kong and was staying at the Taj Mahal hotel on business. ”They had bombs.”
”They came from the restaurant and took us up the stairs,” he told the NDTV news channel, smoke stains all over his face. ”Young boys, maybe 20 years old, 25 years old. They had two guns.”
India has suffered a wave of bomb attacks in recent years. Most have been blamed on Islamist militants, although police have also arrested suspected Hindu extremists thought to be behind some of the attacks.
No one has claimed responsibility for this attack.
Police said targets included the luxury Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, with television stations showing the lobby of both hotels on fire and people being evacuated from the Oberoi with their hands on their heads.
A European official was among the wounded.
”My hotel is surrounded by police and there are gunmen inside,” European lawmaker Ignasi Guardans told Spanish radio from the Taj. ”We are in contact with some deputies inside the hotel, with one in a room and another hidden in the kitchen. There’s another official hurt and in hospital.”
Fresh explosions were heard in the early hours of Thursday.
”An encounter is going on at the two hotels, the situation is grave,” Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister told CNN-IBN TV.
”Our men are on the job.”
Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil said there were around four or five attackers in each of the two hotels.
”They have attacked hotels, they have attacked the hospitals, they have attacked the railway station,” he said, adding that two attackers had been killed and two arrested.
Hemant Karkare, the chief of the police anti-terrorist squad in Mumbai, was also killed during the attacks, police said. — Reuters