Issue date: 12/2/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Michael Chien/DP Senior Photographer Penn students gathered for a candlelight vigil organized by the Indian Students' Association in memory of those who perished in the terrorist attacks in India.

Though the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India last week were thousands of miles away, for some students, they hit close to home.

And for some, the Thanksgiving break meant they were in Mumbai on Wednesday when a group of terrorists stormed the Taj Mahal and Oberoi Trident hotels, the popular Café Leopold and a highly congested train station.

One such student, a Wharton sophomore who did not wish to be named due to security reasons landed in Mumbai on Wednesday at 10:30 p.m., an hour after the attacks began. Upon landing, he was rushed to safety by U.S. embassy officials.

"Because they were targeting British and American passport holders, when we got off the plane, [the officials] took us in a secured vehicle to our hotel," he said.

His family, whom he was meeting, left the Taj Mahal Hotel at 9 p.m., less than an hour before the attacks started.



Still in Mumbai, he said he is scared and "uncertain," since the firing is "happening right outside."

Engineering Sophomore Rahil Mehrotra lost two of his friends' fathers and his high school teacher in the attacks. He said he learned that his teacher was hiding under a table in the Taj Mahal Hotel when she was spotted by a terrorist and shot three times.

"My dad saw and smelled only dead bodies and blood when he entered the Oberoi Trident hotel lobby to identify his friend's body," he said.

Continued...

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