Mumbai hotel hero dies
2008-12-04 16:17
Mumbai - An employee of a Mumbai hotel who
was shot trying to save guests during a 60-hour rampage by
Islamist gunmen last week died from his wounds, doctors and
relatives said on Thursday.
Rajan Kamble, a maintenance staff at the Taj Mahal hotel,
died on Wednesday, exactly a week after gunmen attacked several
places in Mumbai including two plush hotels, killing 171 people
and wounding more than 300.
Kamble, shot in the back with the bullets perforating his
stomach and spilling out his intestines, spent hours waiting
for help. He and the guests with him were later rescued by
commandos.
Kamble was near the Taj foyer when four gunmen burst in and
began firing indiscriminately.
Recovering from the initial shock and chaos, he and other
staff shepherded guests through the service section upstairs,
only to suddenly come face-to-face with one of the gunmen.
Guests tried to help
When the gunman fired, Kamble, 48, was hit. The guests then
made a dash for one of the hotel rooms to hide, dragging the
wounded staff with them.
"If he wasn't there maybe one of us would have been hit,"
Prashant Mangeshikar, a doctor who was with Kamble during the
crisis, told Reuters.
Kamble's intestine was a lump hanging from a gaping hole in
his abdomen that the guests tried to push back using bedsheets.
As stories from inside the hotels have emerged, time and
again guests say hotel workers shielded, hid or led them away
from militants at the Taj and Trident/Oberoi hotels, the other
one hit in the rampage.
The staff often proved essential, knowing shortcuts to
safety and where emergency exits were located.
Kamble has worked with the 105-year-old hotel for almost
two decades, and is survived by his wife and two children, aged
eight and two.
"His wife is at a loss," said family friend Satish Patil,
who came to collect the body. "We don't know what to say to
her."