5 hostages found dead in Mumbai Jewish center; toll passes 150
A rabbi and his wife are among those slain before commandos take control of the Jewish center. An American traveler and his teenage daughter are identified as having been killed at the Oberai hotel.
Saurabh Das / Associated Press
Reporting from Mumbai, India — The death toll rose to at least 150 today, including two Americans and five Israelis, as explosions and gunfire continued to wrack South Asia's financial capital more than 50 hours after the start of Wednesday's well-coordinated terrorist attack.
Despite stepped-up security by police, firefighters and army and navy commandos, the fighting took place throughout the day. Two suspected terrorists were killed and more than 140 hostages freed at one of the five-star hotels targeted, the Oberoi. Explosions also continued much of the day at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel.
At the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Center about half a mile away in a run-down neighborhood of narrow alleys and open sewers, the scene was grim.
Around 7 in the evening after commandos emerged from the building in apparent triumph, a frenzied crowd of hundreds cheered and celebrated wildly amid word that the siege was over and displaced residents would get their neighborhood back.
That joy soon evaporated, however, as news spread that all five of the hostages had died, including Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holzberg and his wife, Rivka.
"The worst fears of the last 48 hours seemed to have happened," said Jonathan Solomon, chairman of the Indian Jewish Federation.
The couple's toddler son, Moshe, survived the assault after an employee was able to sneak him out. He is now with his grandparents.
Even as the Indian government came under growing criticism for its slow response, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee stepped up blame for the attacks on unnamed groups in Pakistan, India's neighbor and longtime rival, following less direct comments made by the prime minister a day earlier.
"Preliminary evidence, prima facie evidence, indicates elements with links to Pakistan are involved," Mukherjee told reporters in New Delhi.
Pakistan countered that it was not to blame and agreed in an unprecedented step to send the head of its military intelligence agency to India to share information.
The new government of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has worked hard to reduce tensions between the two longtime adversaries. But some fear that the devastating attack could push relations back into a deep freeze, arguably achieving what the as-yet-unidentified perpetrators may have wanted.
