Australian tells of Mumbai hotel room ordeal

Nov 28, 2008, 3:02 GMT

   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.