One Canadian dead, five rescued in Mumbai

Indian commandos are airdropped in Nariman House, where the armed militants are believed to be holed out in Mumbai on Friday.

Deccan Mujahideen' group claims responsibility; Army trying to flush out remaining terrorists

MUMBAI -- One Canadian was killed, while five others trapped in luxury hotels stormed by gunmen were now safe and meeting with Canadian officials following bloody and coordinated attacks in Mumbai that left over 130 dead and scores injured, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said in separate statements issued early Friday morning.

Cannon's first statement said that the family of the victim had been notified and that consular officials were providing assistance.

"We are now able to confirm the tragic death of one Canadian in these attacks," said Cannon in the statement.

The statement said that privacy reasons prevented the release of the victim's name.

In a second statement released hours later, Cannon said that the five Canadians were safe with Canadian officials.

"All five Canadians originally confirmed in unsafe locations (Trident and Oberoi hotels) are now safe and meeting with Canadian officials, who are providing them with consular assistance," said the statement.

The Oberoi hotel is also known as the Trident. The statement made no mention of the Taj Hotel which was also targeted in the assault.

The dead Canadian was among the 130 dead in the terrorist attacks that left at least 315 wounded and many more held hostage inside two luxury hotels. No details were provided about the Canadian's cause of death.

In Mumbai, Indian authorities released to local media a partial list of hostages freed from the Oberoi-Trident hotel that included the names of two Canadians. The list was read over the telephone to Canwest News Service by a local reporter outside the hotel. The list contained the names of Jennifer Dean Brooy, from Ontario, and Allison Guay Nankivell, according to Heena Kumawat, a reporter with television station IBN 7.

Canwest News Service could not immediately verify the spelling of the names and Foreign Affairs did not release the names of the freed Canadians.

Kumawat, whose station is affiliated with CNN-IBN, said the list also contained the cellular telephone and passport numbers of the freed Canadians. Brooy's cellphone number had an Ottawa region prefix and rang through to voice mail. The number provided for Nankivell did not work and Kumawat said she could not make out Nankivell's home address.

CNN-IBN reported that the Indian commandos saw the bodies of six dead hostages in the hotel.

At least 36 people were rescued from the Oberoi-Trident, where "mopping up" operations wrapped up Friday as huge flames billowed from an upper floor, police said.

There were reports Thursday that at least six Canadians were trapped in the Oberoi-Trident and Taj hotels.

At least two Canadians were also injured in the attacks. Cannon said in the statement that one of the Canadians had suffered serious injuries and was in stable condition in intensive care. The other Canadian had been released from the hospital. Consular officials visited the seriously injured Canadian and were in contact with his family, said Cannon.

Michael Rudder, of Montreal, was shot three times while in the restaurant area of Mumbai's luxury Oberoi Hotel, said Bobbie Garvey, vice-president of the Synchronicity Foundation, a U.S. based meditation group.

"He's had surgery and he's doing well," Garvey said Thursday. "He's stable - not enough to fly home yet - but he's stable."

Helen Connolly, a Toronto-based yoga instructor, was also grazed by a bullet in the attack, but Garvey said she was quickly released from hospital, is staying with a host family and is doing well.

The two Canadians were travelling in the area with the meditation group and were among the victims shot by terrorists in Mumbai as explosions continued to rock the embattled city Thursday.

"They went with our spiritual director on a pilgrimage to India, and wound up in the middle of this terrorist attack," said Garvey from his organization's base in Faber, Va.

Indian commandos fought room to room battles with Islamic terrorists inside the two luxury hotels Thursday to save people trapped or taken hostage during a bloody siege.

Helicopters buzzed overhead and crowds cheered as the commandos, their faces blackened, moved into the five-star Trident-Oberoi Hotel to release hostages and more than 100 others who were trapped in their rooms.

Earlier, explosions rattled the nearby Taj Hotel, a 105-year-old city landmark on the waterfront, as the troops worked to flush out the last of the gunmen there who had been holed up for more than 24 hours after their rampage of gunfire and grenade blasts. Fire and smoke plumed from an open window. There were reports late Thursday that eight hostages were released from the Taj, and all but one injured gunman had been smoked out.

"I think we should be able to mop up the operation very quickly," Indian National Security Guards director general J.K. Dutt said.

Security forces were also trying to secure an office-residential complex that houses a Jewish centre, where an uncertain number of Israelis were believed to be trapped or held hostage. Two explosions were heard at the site early Friday.

"We've recovered seven hostages from the complex. Sweeping operations are ongoing," a security official told reporters outside Nariman House, the complex in central Mumbai. Nariman House is home to a Jewish prayer and study centre - Chabad House - run by the ultra-Orthodox Lubavitch sect which doubles as a hostel.

Indian officials confirmed Thursday that several Canadians are among the hostages still being held by the terrorists.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper condemned what he called "the despicable and cowardly attacks in Mumbai, India."

"The government of Canada is working closely with Indian authorities to find and assist any Canadians and their families who might be affected by these attacks," Harper said in a statement released Thursday. "Our consular staff in Ottawa and on the ground in Mumbai are working tirelessly to this end."

The Department of Foreign Affairs also issued a travel warning for Mumbai, saying Canadians should avoid non-essential travel.

One Canadian woman who witnessed the carnage described the scene.

"We heard gunfire and we heard grenades and there was a lot of panic," Manuela Testolini told CNN. "People running, people getting trampled . . . There's a lot of waiting. People are hiding in parking structures. I'm in a place now where I feel safe."

Testolini, the ex-wife of rock icon Prince, was in Mumbai on business. She is the founder of A Perfect World, a children's foundation.

The attacks clearly targeted Westerners.

Meantime, one family in Surrey, B.C., was dealing with news of the death of a 21-year-old niece. Satinder Bhui said her niece, Jasmine Bhurji, was working at the Oberoi Hotel, training to be a manager when she was killed in the attack.

"We have lost something very dear to us," Bhui said Thursday in a telephone interview from Surrey. "She was like a daughter to me . . . She grew up in my arms."

Bhui described her niece as "full of life. A very happy-go-lucky kind of a person. She made us laugh . . . she was very excited about her job. Very hardworking."

Bhui said she had exchanged e-mail messages with her niece just two days ago.

"We called home as soon as we saw the news of the attacks on TV. And we found out that she was no more," she said. "My brother is there and he is bringing the body home to Chandigarh," a city in the north of India.

A previously little-known organization calling itself the Deccan Mujahedeen has sent an e-mail to news organizations claiming responsibility for the attacks.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the militants had come from "outside the country," while the military official leading the operation to flush them out, Maj.-Gen. R.K. Hooda, said they were from archrival Pakistan.

The Press Trust of India said one Pakistani militant had been detained, although Pakistan's government fiercely denied any involvement.

Three of the militants have confessed they are members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, an Indian newspaper reported.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the largest Islamist militant groups in South Asia, denied on Thursday that it had any role in the attacks.

One of the militants was a resident of Faridkot in Pakistan's Punjab province, the Hindu said, citing unidentified police investigators.

"Based on the interrogation of the suspects, the investigators believe that one or more groups of Lashkar operatives left Karachi in a merchant ship early on Wednesday," the newspaper said.

It said the group came ashore at Mumbai on a small boat and then split up into small teams to attack multiple locations.

The Mumbai attacks bear some hallmarks of al-Qaida but it is too early to say if the network was behind the deadly assaults, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Thursday.

He added that violent extremists should not be allowed to divide India and Pakistan.

"It is very premature to start talking about links to al-Qaida," he said. "Some of the names of groups that are being circulated at the moment are not al-Qaida affiliates, but that cannot be taken as a definitive view.

"The fact that these were co-ordinated attacks, attacks on travel centres as well as on hotels, bears some hallmarks of al-Qaida, but equally that does not mean that this is an al-Qaida attack."

Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, is a major metropolitan centre on the west coast of India near the Arabian Sea.



Source: nationalpost.com