Bollywood stars lose family and friends in Mumbai

Actor Ashish Chaudhary, who recently starred alongside Sanjay Dutt in EMI, lost his sister, Monica Chhabaria, and her husband. They were dining at the Oberoi Trident Hotel when the terrorists struck.

Bheja Fry actress Bhairavi Gos wami left a party with friends at the Oberoi after an argument with one of them. The rest of her group of seven were not as lucky, as an hour later the first attacks occurr ed and only one of them survived.

Arshad Warsi passed the same Vile Parle site 15 minutes before the attack. "Nothing can stop Mumbai residents from getting back to normal, but we need to ex ercise more caution," he said.

Celina Jaitley was at the Four Seasons Hotel in Worli when the attacks began. Her party stayed close to the exits until 3am before eventually retiring to their rooms.

Youngster Sammir Dattani had a table booked for a party of six at the Oberoi for dinner. He was within minutes of the venue when he decided to skip it, as he had an early-morning flight. Just as he and his friends turned to leave, a loud explosion went off in the hotel and "all hell broke loose, so we quickly drove off".

Raveena Tandon was dining at a restaurant in south Mumbai when she got calls to leave immediately. She said: "It's time the corrupt politicians woke up. Stop thinking of your voter banks and think of what's happening to our country."

Lyricist and scriptwriter Javed Akhtar appealed for unity while demanding action. "It is time to stand united behind our security forces and flush out these culprits," he said.

Abbas Tyrewala, the director of Jaane Tu..., said the response to the attacks within his own Muslim community had demonstrated that every right-thinking Indian Muslim denounced terrorism.

Actor Irffan Khan, who led the cast of Mumbai Meri Jaan, which focused on the city's train bomb blasts, felt that things would only change "if we find the root cause of the problem".

Hema Malini praised Mumbai's police officers, saying, "I think they rose to the occasion. It is sad that we lost some brave officers. It worries me that Mumbai has become so unsafe. We desperately need more security."

Shilpa Shetty described the events as "open war against humanity". She added: "It makes me sad and angry that Mumbai resi dents are soft targets for such attacks. It's an unsettling feeling, especially since we do not seem to be equipped to deal with it."

The attacks also took the sheen off the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), held annually in Goa. All festivities around the event, including a live concert featuring Kavita Krishnamurthy and Sonu Nigam, were cancelled.