As the evening suburban trains entered VT in India's financial capital, Mumbai, on Wednesday, detraining passengers were caught in random fire from automatic weapons and hand grenades lobbed indiscriminately at them aiming to cause the maximum casualties.

It was, as a resident put it, "sheer insanity". Soon, guns opened up at Vile Parle, Santa Cruz, Worli, Cafe Leopold, and the Taj Mahal, Oberoi and Ramada hotels, among other known south Mumbai night spots, spreading panic among Mumbaikars returning home from work. As the automatic weapons spewed bullets, bombs went off at VT and a petrol pump was blown up, pools of blood appeared on the streets. The Oberoi wore the look of a battle zone with shards of glass strewn all around, the lobby apparently on fire because of grenade attacks; and there were reports of bombs being hurled by the terrorists holed up inside the hotel.

Sandip Mallick, an employee of a multinational company, and a resident of Malabar Hill across the bay in Nariman Point, said he knew something "had gone horribly wrong" when he heard two loud explosions close to his house around 10:30pm (local time). Mallick's first reaction was to call up the Taj and Oberoi to find out if colleagues putting up at the two five-star hotels were safe; he was lucky as none of his colleagues were there but there are reports of members of parliament (MPs) being holed up in the Taj Palace.

"From what I could gather, small groups of terrorists holed up in the hotels, in vans parked across the city ran amok in the multi-storeyed buildings and on the streets, shooting and hurling grenades at will."

The panic and shock waves that have struck Mumbai reverberated in Kolkata where a friend of a colleague living in Kandivili told The Statesman that her initial reaction was "oh no, not again!"

She likened tonight's bloodbath to the terror felt by Mumbaikars when serial blasts took place on suburban trains in 2006, except this time the well-heeled and the powerful too felt the "impact of terror". Her primary concern is how to get her son to school today (November 27), especially when the Class 10 board preliminary examinations are round the corner. Former Kolkata quizmaster Suhel Seth, who is a guest at the Taj Mahal, was told by hotel staff not to return to the hotel, as were others who were fortunate enough to have had plans for the evening away from the epicentre of the terror takeover of India's financial capital.

Originally from Kolkata and now settled in Andheri, Giridhari Hazra, a businessman, said his wife called up from Kolkata to inform him of the terror strikes. "I switched on the television and my jaw dropped," Hazra said.

Sanghamitra Sinha Roy from Andheri, in Kolkata for a short visit, said Mumbai has been taking the brunt of the terror attacks. "We feel so helpless. Who knows when this ordeal is going to end. I guess this is something we have to learn to live with..."

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