At least 80 people have been killed and 250 wounded in a series of shootings around India's financial capital Mumbai on Wednesday night, with two five-star hotels among the targets in what police called a terror attack.
"It looks like a terrorist attack, we are investigating who are behind it at the moment,," A.N Roy, Maharashtra state police chief told local televison channels.
Targets included the luxury Taj and Oberoi hotels, with television stations showing the lobby of both hotels on fire and people being evacuated from the Oberoi with their hands on their heads.
"The lobby of the Taj hotel is on fire," a police spokesman said. "We are trying to find out how many people are inside the hotel."
Some of the injured were evacuated from the Taj on the hotel's golden luggage carts.
Television stations also reported shooting outside the Cafe Leopold, a popular restaurant for tourists in the city, and at hospitals and railway stations. They said automatic rifles had been used, and at least one hand grenade thrown.
"They entered the passenger hub of a station and started firing," A.K. Sharma, a Mumbai police government railway police commissioner told local television.
Sameeran Chakraborty, a Mumbai resident, told the NDTV news channel he heard a blast inside a car near the city airport.
"It was a big noise and one car was involved, definitely not more than that."
India has suffered a wave of bomb attacks in recent years. Most have been blamed on Islamist militants, although police have also arrested suspected Hindu extremists thought to be behind some of the attacks.
© Reuters 2008
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