"We were lined up and shot," Mumbai family tells ordeal (Feature)

South Asia Features

By Sunrita Sen Dec 4, 2008, 12:56 GMT

New Delhi/Mumbai - A group of guests at Mumbai's Oberoi hotel were lined up against a wall. Then two terrorists simultaneously fired at them, killing most, the son of a survivor injured in the attacks told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Thursday. Just a week after the hotel was attacked alongside a string of other business and tourist locations, including a Jewish Centre and the Taj Hotel, the family of Apoorva Parikh is still adjusting to the events that shook Mumbai in the days from November 26. Father Apoorva, a 57-year-old builder, is still recovering from his injuries. Still reeling with shock, the family was initially even hesitant to tell their name. Instead, Parikh's son Rohan, 22, a business student, recounted his father's experience in an email. His father had gone to the Oberoi that night for dinner with two of his closest friends, he said. The three friends were at a restaurant on the first floor of the Oberoi when they heard gunshots. The hotel staff tried to rush the guests out of the kitchen exit. 'As the guests tried to rush into the kitchen, one terrorist burst into the restaurant and began to shoot anyone that remained in the restaurant. At this point my father was in the kitchen and, along with his two friends, rushed to the fire exit. 'They had barely descended a few steps when they were trapped from both ends by terrorists. 'The terrorists then rounded up anyone alive (about 20 people) and made them climb the service staircase to the 19th floor. On reaching the 18th floor landing they made the people line up against a wall. 'One terrorist then positioned himself on the staircase going up from the landing and the other on the staircase going down from the landing. 'Then, in a scene right out of the Holocaust, they simultaneously opened fire on the people. My father was towards the centre of the line with his two friends on either side. Out of reflex, or presence of mind, he ducked as soon as the firing began. 'One bullet grazed his neck, and he fell to the floor as his two friends and several other bodies piled on top of him. The terrorists then pumped another series of bullets into the heap of bodies to finish the job. 'This time a bullet hit my father in the back hip. Bent almost in double, crushed by the weight of the bodies above him, and suffocating in the torrent of blood rushing down on him from the various bodies my father held on for 10 minutes while the terrorists left the area. 'When he finally had the courage to wiggle his arms he found that there were four other survivors in the room. They communicated to each other by touch as they were too afraid to make a sound. 'My father moved just enough to allow himself room to breathe and then lay still. The survivors passed over 12 hours lying still in the heap of bodies too afraid to move. 'They constantly heard gunfire and hand grenades going off in the other parts of the hotel. They feared that any noise would bring the terrorists back. 'After approximately 12 hours, the terrorists returned with a camera and flashlight and joked and laughed as they filmed what they thought was a pile of dead bodies. 'They then moved to the landing below where they set up explosives. On their departing, my father decided that it was too risky to remain where they were, due to the explosives.' The three survivors then climbed the rest of the stairs to reach an air-cooling plant room where they hid, drinking sips of water from the air-conditioning unit, till Friday, November 28, morning when a commando team rescued them and took them to hospital. His father, who had two minor bullet wounds is recovering well, the son wrote. 'He, however, lost his two best friends he was dining with that night.'

Talkback

Add your comment (no registration required)

page: 1 2

lanceDec 4th, 2008 - 13:45:58

Typical.

Murders happen at least 17,000 times in the United States per year every year. I imagine that each one is essentially just as violent and misguided as is what is described here.

Should we hate muslims or invade a country and bomb them back to the stone age because people get murdered?

I don't think so. Lets let detectives, police and the court systems do their job and spend a trillion dollars on making better detectives, police and court systems instead of making jesus-bombs.

Report this comment

lanceDec 4th, 2008 - 23:01:04

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but I am incapable of making a comment without mentioning jesus-bombs. I eat jesus-flakes for breakfast and poop jesus-turds. I use this phrase because it acts as a jesus-shield for my jesus-opinions so that I do not have to form genuine jesus-thoughts. I talk about jesus-bombs and you have an emotional jesus-reaction completely jesus-independent of actually saying anything jesus-substantial.

Report this comment

lanceDec 4th, 2008 - 23:12:21

Of course. That is because the use of jesus is only allowed by believers. Non-believers have no credibility.

Only a non-believer would say the truth: That christians, following their faith and guidance in jesus, make and uses bombs (jesus-bombs). ... and the devil has nothing to do with it.

No true-believer would *say it*, but they sure do *do it*.

I would rather be a non-bombing-pagan-fruit-cake then a jesus-bomb-fanatic.

Report this comment

SP4: On the other handDec 4th, 2008 - 23:18:53

...comparing simple crime to a foreign insurgency is a glaring example of someone who lacks the intellect to differentiate between the two.

Now, Lance, please spill the beans on how Bush broke the Bank of England. What did he do, make a withdrawl?

'Hey Egon, remember the time I stopped you from drilling a hole in your own head'?

'It would have worked if you hadn't stopped me!'

- Ghostbusters

Report this comment

lanceDec 4th, 2008 - 23:31:34

'comparing simple crime to a foreign insurgency'

Yes. Compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of jesus-bomb, jesus-missiles and jesus-ordinance, this foreign insurgency IS a simple crime.

Infact, they have killed LESS people than those murdered in the United States. They are a small time operation. They are smaller than, for example, Mexican drug kings infiltrating into the United States from the southern border with their gang warfare.

You jesus-freaks. You are just begging to make excuses so you can use your jesus-missiles. There are plenty of jesus-missile targets in Texas to go after.

Have a good jesus-fest as you whip up your jesus-hate with your jesus-excuses.

Report this comment

lanceDec 4th, 2008 - 23:58:43

It is interesting how all of the posters are so concerned over a few 100 people getting gunned down when there are at least 17,000 murders every year in their own country. Imagine: Those are simply the reported murders! Who knows how many people are murdered in the USA.

Of course, everyone knows that the poster's interests are to condemn muslims-ways and to glorify their own jesus-ways.

Such a hypocritical behavior, yet so damning and so prevalent in the U.S. society from the typical U.S. citizen right up to their congress and president. It is alarming that there is such a society blind to their own faults and so focused on the faults of others to the point where they mass kill others based on the other's faults while at the same time ignore their own children and citizens being murdered.

Report this comment

lanceDec 5th, 2008 - 00:12:44

This reminds me of another issue...

The typical U.S. citizen and their government is so concerned about converting others to their system (the jesus-system) that they overspend by trillions of dollars in foreign military occupations and foreign welfare programs.

Meanwhile, they ignore their own mortgaging of their own children's future by building up trillions of dollars of debt.

What kind of society is so preoccupied with muslims that they ignore the mass slaughter of their own citizens and raping of their children and the mortgaging of their children's future?

Report this comment

JosephDec 5th, 2008 - 04:21:08

Lance, are you really that naive, ignorant and stupid? Yes, I think you are. Your PC numb-nuts solutions will get more people killed. But I'm sure you can rationalize it all away with your vastly superior intellect.

Report this comment

MargauxDec 5th, 2008 - 06:00:46

To all who want to pat the terrorists on the head...glass parking lot. Always lock and load. Never trust anyone. And by the way, i have a personal relationship avec Jesus and He has a message pour lancey baby.
I am supposed to tell lance that He would kill all terrorists, and that he is trying very hard to carry that out, but people are always getting in the way of his surrogates. Please tell the belly aching bleeding heart liberals to get out of His way so that He can destroy evil. Merci beaucoup, dawling.

Report this comment

JuanMDec 5th, 2008 - 13:53:22

Lance,

I agree that about the murder rate in the USA being much larger. For example, more Americans were murdered in Chicago of last year than were killed in combat in Iraq of last year. Justifiable or not, the people in Iraq do not live under Saddam, a ruthless dictator that gassed his own people. The people of Iraq have voted, something not done in decades. However, I'm sure you are one of those wackos that would rather have Saddam in power or give continuous excuses for radical muslims.

However, your own number are wrong. In 2007 the USA had 16,204 murders, or 0.042802 per 1,000 people.

Report this comment

page: 1 2

Add your comment (no registration required)

South Asia

"We were lined up and shot," Mumbai family tells ordeal (Feature)

South Asia Features

Talkback

Similar articles

Latest Headlines in South Asia

Latest Articles on The Tech Herald

In Monsters and Critics

Corporate

The Fine Print