7 foreigners among 15 taken hostage in Taj Hotel

MUMBAI: Armed with a AK-47 gun and a rifle, two terrorists dressed in jeans and a T-shirt barged into the restaurant of the luxury Taj Hotel on Wednesday night and looked for American and British passport holders and herded some of them to the hotel roof.
      
The terrorists took 15 people, half of them foreigners, hostage, one of the hostages who managed to escape said.
     
Two youths in their 20s came to the restaurant of the hotel and took 15 people to the roof of the hotel, Rakesh Patel, a businessman from London who lives in Hong Kong, told a leading news channel, giving the first eyewitness account of what happened in the five-star hotel in South Mumbai.
     
"The two young boys came to the restaurant and took us upstairs. We were taken to the 18th floor from where we escaped", he said.
     
Replying to a question, Patel said the terrorists wanted to know if any one of the hostages was carrying American and British passports.
     
They clearly wanted foreigners, he added.