ATLANTA — Angela Mulchandami was relieved to see her mother made it aboard a flight from Mumbai to Atlanta on Thursday morning.
“It’s hard not knowing how all of your loved ones are, especially when you are seeing it on TV,” said the 25-year-old Mulchandami as she waited at the airport. “I didn’t know if she had made the flight.”
Several Americans were among the injured in the terrorist strikes in India. Andi Varagona of Nashville, Tenn., called her mother, Celeste Varagona, from a hospital Thursday and said she had been shot in the arm and leg while eating dinner at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel. Another Tennessee woman traveling with her was also injured, but her name was not immediately available, Celeste Varagona told The Associated Press.
A father and daughter from Virginia also were missing after being caught in an attack, said a spokeswoman for the spiritual group they were traveling with. Neither Alan Scherr, 58, nor Naomi Scherr, 13, had turned up by Thursday night, said Bobbie Garvey, spokeswoman for the Synchronicity Foundation. Both live and work at the group’s headquarters in Faber, Va.
The 23 other members of the group who were traveling with the Scherrs have been accounted for, Garvey said. The group’s website said two from America and two from Canada were shot and wounded but are believed to be in stable condition. Their names weren’t immediately available.
State Department spokesman Robert McInturff said Thursday that at least three Americans were injured in the attacks, but he said he could not identify them.
Karan Maheshwari, 25, also arrived in Atlanta from Mumbai on Thursday morning. His mother called him before he took off to say that his high school biology teacher had been shot to death and two family friends were being held captive at the Taj Mahal hotel.
“They are just killing innocent people,” said the younger Maheshwari, who works for the McKinsey & Company consulting firm across the street from the Oberoi Hotel.
Sumita Batra, 39, who owns a chain of Indian-influenced beauty salons in Southern California, said she has two close friends who are in Mumbai for the holiday season. After several hours of trying Thursday, she finally reached one who was traveling with her 3-year-old son.
“It’s so weird because they keep showing the same thing over and over again. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I’m hoping that I can hear that it’s over,” said Batra, who lives in Artesia, a southern Los Angeles County city that’s home to the region’s Little India.
