First hand accounts of the Mumbai attacks

Following are first-hand accounts by Indian nationals and foreigners caught up in the coordinated terrorist attacks on Mumbai:

"There was a lot of gunfire, a lot of AK-47s and grenades going off. We had one aborted attempt to get out, when the army tried to get us out, and a number of people got killed. We went back into the chambers again and waited for three more attempts to storm where we were, then at about seven this morning the army came in and took us down the back stairs of the hotel down into the main reception. We got on the bus and they attacked the buses, firing machine guns at the buses we were on and we got out and just ran, and now I'm at the Australian consulate. There were about 100 trapped. At least one of them was a terrorist, he had a bag in front of him and his finger on a mobile phone the whole time. He was the first one out and he got shot and his colleague got killed. The lights went out and we didn't know who the good guys and the bad guys were."
Myles Curtis, British businessman, in the Chinese restaurant of the Taj hotel
Sky News

"They looked just like boys and they were on a rampage. We had just sat down for dinner ordering food when it seemed fire crackers were blowing up all around us and people were screaming. We got into a taxi which took us to Bombay hospital. We were, I think, the first people at hospital, which is where we are now."
Australian David Coker, 23, grazed by a bullet at the Leopold Cafe while his girlfriend Katie Anstee, 24, was shot in the leg
Sydney Courier-Mail

"As I stepped into the bathroom you could hear machine gun fire start up in the lobby and everybody in there just froze. People started locking themselves in to the toilet cubicles, which clearly wasn't a very good idea at the time so we were trying to find somewhere else to hide. Some of the hotel security came and ushered us very quickly down the corridor and across the lobby, clearly no one had a very good idea of what happened ... or where we were meant to be heading at that stage. There were people getting shot in the corridor. There was someone dead outside the bathroom. The next thing I knew I was running down the stairs and there were a couple of dead bodies across the stairs. It was chaos."
Brooke Satchwell, an Australian actress, who escaped from the Taj hotel

"At about 9.40pm I was having a beer in the Leopold Cafe - luckily I was with some friends upstairs - when two gunmen coming downstairs threw two grenades into the restaurant and then opened fire for about 10 minutes with AK47s. I wedged the door down the bottom with a table and then went straight upstairs until the police came. [When they came] we went to where we thought was a safe place - the back of the hotel we were staying in, but it's under siege at the moment. I don't have a weapon, or a firearm ... I don't know what's going on., I don't have access to a television or anything. I'd like someone to tell me what's going on so I can make a plan to get out of here with these guys. I'm about a block from the harbour and my plan is just to go."
Australian Steve Smith, calling from a hotel room in the Taj hotel
Seven Network

"We were at dinner when we heard shots fired. There was gunfire and explosions. We stayed on the floor, many were lying under tables, under furniture, and the hotel staff told us to be quiet. The hotel staff were stupendous. They locked the doors and warned us to sit tight. We lay down in the water. We could hear the sound of people running outside. It was terrifying.''
Cheryl Robinson, British tourist trapped inside the Taj hotel with two friends
Times of India

"We felt the ground shake and heard the explosions. We heard a car speed up behind us, it was a police van, but the men inside were firing at us. Men were screaming that they had lost their fingers. There was blood all over. Some were shot in the leg, some on the shoulder or hand. I feel they are still screaming."
Manish Tripathi, describing the moment gunmen opened fire on crowds who had gathered at a hospital
Times of India

"Emergency" can someone check if there bomb blast of some shootout in oberoi hotel of anywhere in Mumbai? - I am at inox inside. I could hear noises outside hard to make out if it gun shootout - when I heard noise outside you could see people scared crying.
Twitter user Puneet from the Inox movie centre

"I was stood with a group of people ... when a terrorist came through the door and started shooting. I was aware that there were other terrorists there but I could only physically see one. He fired at us all and I saw the people in front of me start to drop dead... My only thought was self-preservation - my thoughts weren't really on observing what was happening and why. Four or five of us then made good our escape. We ended up in the kitchen of one of the restaurants on the ground floor. We waited there for about 20 minutes before being led through to the restaurant. We - about 50 of us - barricaded ourselves in using a piano, some heavy armchairs and some other seating."
Sajjad Karim, a British MEP, who barricaded himself into the Taj hotel with about 50 other guests