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Beyond the line of duty

P.T. Jyothi Datta

Businessman narrates experience at terror-hit Taj

Mumbai: They had just ordered champagne at the poolside restaurant at the old Taj Mahal Hotel to celebrate a business deal struck earlier on Wednesday. Little did businessman B.G. Kukillaya, his colleague and an overseas associate imagine that the next eight hours would become one of the most harrowing experiences of their lives.

“Even as we got the champagne and said cheers, we heard the firing,” said Mr. Kukillaya, managing director of Universal Printing Systems Ltd., recounting the chilling experience of the night when terror in the form of gun-toting men gripped the financial capital.

But the ordeal also revealed the stuff that the hotel staff and Maharashtra firemen were made of — as they extended themselves beyond the line of duty. “They were helpful, brave and humorous,” Mr. Kukillaya says.

Recalling how that night unfolded, he says any thought that it could be festivity in the city or gang wars that Mumbai is known for was put to rest, as they heard an explosion and saw two firing gunmen rushing into the restaurant. People present there started fleeing; some were seen “dropping,” felled by the gunmen’s bullets, he said, apprehending that the casualties at the hotel would be high.

People followed one another like sheep, chased by gunmen who were firing at random. With one gunman behind him, the 61-year-old Mr. Kukillaya too followed his associates up to the first floor, despite his broken hip.

They ran into a bar where some Japanese people were present and with the firing continuing, someone shouted “drop,” he told Business Line on Saturday morning, puffing on a cigarette in a more silent room at a hotel at Juhu.

As the gunmen ran up the steps, the 35-odd people in the bar lay silent on the floor, even as the overseas associate turned his face towards the wall to conceal his foreign identity.

Switched off lights

The hotel staff were excellent and they switched off the lights in five minutes after the incident and shut the doors, Mr. Kukillaya said. And soon enough, he realised that lying on the ground beside him was the Taj’s catering assistant, Pradeep Singh Gusain, who had served them champagne.

As they lay there, looking at the shattered glass doors, they heard the sounds of firing, explosions and the cries of women on other floors. Mr. Gusain endeared himself to the people there, as he tried to barricade their door, crawl across to the pantry and got bottles of water for them. He even got wafers for Mr. Kukillaya, as he did not have dinner. But Mr. Kukillaya quipped that he did not want to get shot eating a wafer at 3 a.m., surprising Mr. Gusain with his humour at the dark hour. Mobile phones were a constant companion for the hotel staff, who kept guests informed of the terrorist attack. In fact, after Mr. Kukillaya’s son in Chennai got to know that his father was indeed caught in the hotel siege, he kept messaging him, besides speaking to Govind Prasad, his father’s colleague.

The hotel staff kept two buckets as makeshift toilets for the guests, he said. As the staff and guests continued their agonising wait, the room got cold. Water being poured on the hotel to douse the flames seeped into their place of hiding, making it “unbearable.”

The end to the agonising wait seemed to be close, as commandos stormed the hotel. But with all the attention on the sixth floor, the crack team almost missed the people hiding on the first floor, said Mr. Prasad. Finally some of them got the attention of the firemen, and a ladder was put up to the first floor to get them out. But with Mr. Kukillaya and another woman unable to take the ladder, Mr. Prasad (who had got out) ensured that the firemen brought the automated crane to their window to bring them down. The firemen were cheerful and encouraging, Mr. Kukillaya said, as they tasted freedom in the early hours of Thursday.

Two days from the ordeal, he sits riveted to his television. “I cannot sleep,” he says. And with 20 minutes for him to leave for the airport to leave Mumbai, he gets back to the television after the interview, to make sure that all people have left the Taj before he leaves.

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