PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad: A well-known Trinidad and Tobago businessman was saved from being brutally murdered in last week’s terrorist massacre in India when he hid for more than a day in a barricade on the 16th floor of the world famous Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai.Sixty-four-year-old Richard Farrah told his son via email that he hid himself while terrorists stomped through the building, killing everyone they could find.
His son, Anthony Farrah, who lives in Florida revealed to the Trinidad Express his father's nightmare, and stated that his father told him via email and telephone that despite the blood and bullets and bombs, he and the nine people who were imprisoned with him also survived.
They were rescued when commandos stormed the hotel and escorted them out, killing several militants during the action.
Farrah made it down 16 flights of stairs. For him it was an especially harrowing experience – he did it on a prosthetic left leg, having lost the limb at the knee in an accident when a child.
Farrah said that he usually stopped at the hotel's bar, but not that day.
He said that was where the shooting began when the terrorists stormed the hotel and added that when the Indian army reached his room, they asked for his passport.
The Trinidad businessman said that he and the other nine were taken from the hotel and said, as he did, he passed a scene of destruction and the lobby looked like a scene from a movie with blood splattered everywhere and marks that appeared to be where bodies were dragged across the floor.
Anthony said that his father who is the strongest individual he knew, told him that the terrorists had guns and hidden grenades.
He added that he was without food and water for the entire ordeal and that he would have been killed because the terrorists were looking for people with British or US passports.
Farrah has a British passport having been born in the UK, but spent almost his entire life in Trinidad.
He left Port of Spain last Sunday for Mumbai to meet a supplier for his furniture and interiors business, which he operates in the twin-island Republic.
Richard, the father of four, is a former professional boxing manager and motor racing enthusiast and is currently is the managing director of MDC-UM Home and Business Furniture and Interiors and his son, Anthony, is the company's sales and marketing manager based in Florida.
Anthony said that the tragedy would not affect his father’s business trip, as he would continue to have his meetings and return home on Sunday as planned.
Reports are not yet fully in as to the final death toll from the terrorist attack in Mumbai’s financial and entertainment district, which claimed at least 183 lives.
photo caption: Activists hold up banners and placards during a peace rally in memory of those killed in the Mumbai attacks outside the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. AFP PHOTO
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