Sydney - An Australian businessman holed up in a Mumbai
hotel room told Friday of a cat-and-mouse game that guests were
playing with gunmen intent on their deaths.
Wine company executive Garrick Harvison told national broadcaster
ABC in a mobile telephone call from the Oberoi Trident hotel that
fellow captives were in contact by mobile phone and swapping hints on
how not to be fooled into giving away their locations.
'You keep your head down, keep quiet, keep away from the door and
keep away from the windows,' Harvison said, describing how Indian
troops were going through the hotel floor by floor, room by room,
trying to flush out the terrorists that remained.
Forty of the 200 guests trapped at the five-star hotel since the
beginning of coordinated terrorist attacks across the city Wednesday
night have been rescued.
Harvison said the consensus was that it was best not to answer the
phone or respond to a knock on the door.
'I'd heard it was a trick,' he said. 'They'd been tricking British
and American passport holders by grabbing the copies of their
passports they left behind the desk and then asking them to come
down.'
Harvison said guests were aware the Indian security forces had
master keys and so a knock on the door could mean a bullet rather
than salvation.
He said he was keeping his spirits up by rationing what was left
in the minibar and staring at pictures and video clips of family
members on his mobile phone.
'It's about trying to keep sane,' he said. 'There's no point
panicking or trying to be anxious about the whole situation because
it's not going to help.'
Police in Mumbai said the death toll in the attacks was 125 with
more than 320 people, including 22 foreigners, wounded.
The attackers opened indiscriminate fire and lobbed grenades
Wednesday night at the luxury Taj and Oberoi Trident hotels, Mumbai's
busiest railway station, hospitals, police headquarters, a Jewish
centre and a restaurant popular with foreigners.
Two Australians are known to have been killed in the attacks in
India's financial capital - 49-year-old Brett Taylor and 71-year-old
Doug Markell - but diplomats said they fear more might have lost
their lives.
USA
Your Talkback on this Story