Though the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India last week were thousands of miles away, for some students, they hit close to home.
And for some, the Thanksgiving break meant they were in Mumbai on Wednesday when a group of terrorists stormed the Taj Mahal and Oberoi Trident hotels, the popular Café Leopold and a highly congested train station.
One such student, a Wharton sophomore who did not wish to be named due to security reasons landed in Mumbai on Wednesday at 10:30 p.m., an hour after the attacks began. Upon landing, he was rushed to safety by U.S. embassy officials.
"Because they were targeting British and American passport holders, when we got off the plane, [the officials] took us in a secured vehicle to our hotel," he said.
His family, whom he was meeting, left the Taj Mahal Hotel at 9 p.m., less than an hour before the attacks started.
Still in Mumbai, he said he is scared and "uncertain," since the firing is "happening right outside."Engineering Sophomore Rahil Mehrotra lost two of his friends' fathers and his high school teacher in the attacks. He said he learned that his teacher was hiding under a table in the Taj Mahal Hotel when she was spotted by a terrorist and shot three times.
"My dad saw and smelled only dead bodies and blood when he entered the Oberoi Trident hotel lobby to identify his friend's body," he said.
Mehrotra added that he will feel unsafe when he returns to Mumbai in three weeks since a few of the terrorists are still suspected to be at large.
If the attacks were to have happened a month from now, he said the probability he or one of his friends would be victims would be very high because they frequent the area where the attacks occurred.
Wharton and Engineering senior and President of the Wharton India Students' Association Karishma Mehta said the blasts were articularly "personal" and "widespread." She added that because the attacks occurred in a more affluent area of Mumbai, they affected a number of Penn students.
Since so many students were affected, Rangoli, the Indian graduate students' association, organized a candlelight vigil yesterday on College Green to commemorate the deceased.
"A lot of students are studying politics, and we want to inspire them to go back to India upon graduation and work in politics back home," said Rangoli President and Engineering graduate student Snehit Neenakri.
Nicolas Aguirre, a College and Wharton sophomore, said he wore white, the Indian color of mourning, -yesterday because "I despise the violence in Mumbai" and to show "solidarity with my Indian friends."
As a result of the attacks, the dedication of the Dhirubhai Ambani auditorium in Huntsman Hall, scheduled for yesterday, was cancelled. Reliance ADA Group Chairman Anil Ambani, the keynote speaker, was asked by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to remain in Mumbai to demonstrate solidarity, according to an e-mail sent Friday by Wharton Dean Thomas Robertson.
Mehta said WISA will hold a panel later this week to discuss the economic effects of the blasts.
University President Amy Gutmann also released a statement last night expressing grief over the attacks.
"We are deeply saddened by the senseless and brutal acts of violence that took place in Mumbai last week," the statement said. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, their families and the good citizens of Mumbai who have no doubt been devastated by this horrific event."
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