Millionaire gunned down just minutes after telling of Mumbai ordeal
A British shipping millionaire has been gunned down in his hotel room in Mumbai just minutes after the 73-year-old spoke to the BBC via telephone.
Andreas Liveras, was shot literally moments after he gave an eyewitness account of the horrors of the terrorist attacks from his room at the Taj hotel.
He is one of more than 125 people, including dozens of Britons and two Australians who have either been killed, injured or taken hostage by Islamic extremists during the series of co-ordinated raids on western targets.
Mr Liveras was pronounced dead on arrival at St George’s Hospital in Mumbai after suffering multiple gunshot wounds, hospital officials told London’s The Times.
MUMBAI: Terrorists who struck Mumbai had set up advance “Control Rooms” in the luxury Taj and Trident Oberoi hotels which was also targeted and did
prior reconnaisance executing plans worked “over months”, Union Cabinet minister Kapil Sibal said on Thursday night.
Sibal said the unprecedented terror attack in the country’s financial capital was planned “over months” and the terrorists were not carrying AK-47 rifles but sophisticated weapons like MP-6.
“The terrorists have identified the targets earlier. Somebody had told them earlier. Enormous planning went into the incident. The terrorists were dropped by a mother ship and travelled in rubber boats which they docked (at Mumbai),” Sibal said.
Terrorists were not attacking people at random. It was a well though out plan, Sibal said.
They had targeted certain key police officers even when they were wearing vests and protective head gears, he said, adding the terrorists shot them dead within minutes of their arrival.
As security agencies pieced together various leads in the probe on India’s worst ever terror strike, there were reports that a likely marine arm of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba may have been involved in the well-planned attacks that left 125 people dead.
The Union Home Ministry said the terrorists chose the sea route and came to the city in boats before spreading out in the metropolis to carry out the sinister strike.
The assessment by the Centre as Mumbai continued to be under siege for the second day came amid reports that the leader of the armed terrorists involved in the attack was killed by his own men.