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QUEENS (CBS) ― The horrific attacks in India's financial capital caused much heartache and concern halfway around the world, in New York City's Indian community.

The Hindu Temple Society of North America held a prayer service for the dead and injured in Queens Thursday.

"I talked to them back on the phone and they said it was very dangerous. If they don't stop it this is very bad for India. The government should take action to stop these culprits. I'm really upset," said former Mumbai resident Bola Kaua.

"It's sad news. I'm not there, a lot of Indian people getting killed, it's sad news," said Ankur Gouri.

Groups of armed terrorists stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, a crowded train station and a Jewish center, killing at least 104 people and taking hostages in India's commercial center. Dozens of people were still trapped or held captive Thursday.
 
Authorities suspect Islamic terrorists were responsible.

Police and gunmen were exchanging occasional gunfire at two luxury hotels and dozens of people were believed held hostage or trapped inside the besieged buildings. Pradeep Indulkar, a senior official at the Maharashtra state Home Ministry, said early on Thursday that 101 people had been killed and 314 injured.

Among the dead were at least one Australian, Japanese and British national he said. Officials said eight militants had also been killed in the coordinated attacks on at least 10 sites that began around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Gunmen seized the Mumbai headquarters of the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch overnight, and that shots were heard coming from the building.

Representatives of the New York-based group referred questions to their Web site, which said the Israeli consulate had earlier been in touch with the rabbi who lived in the house, "but the line was cut in middle of the conversation. No further contact has since been established."

Police loudspeakers declared a curfew around Mumbai's landmark Taj Mahal hotel, and black-clad commandos ran into the building as fresh gunshots rang out from the area, apparently the beginning of an assault on gunmen who had taken hostages in the hotel.

Soldiers outside the hotel said forces were moving slowly, from room to room, looking for gunmen and traps. At noon, two bodies covered with white cloth were wheeled out of the entrance and put in ambulances.

At the nearby upscale Oberoi hotel, soldiers could be seen on the roof of neighboring buildings. A banner hung out of one window read "save us." No one could be seen inside the room from the road.

Officials at Bombay Hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a Japanese man had died there and nine Europeans had been admitted, three of them in critical condition with gunshots. All had come from the Taj Mahal, the officials said.

At least three top Indian police officers -- including the chief of the anti-terror squad -- were among those killed, said and A.N. Roy, a top police official.

Early Thursday, state Home Secretary Bipin Shrimali said four suspects had been killed in two incidents in Mumbai when they tried to flee in cars, and Roy said four more gunmen were killed at the Taj Mahal. State Home Minister R.R. Patil said nine more were arrested. They declined to provide any further details.

"We're going to catch them dead or alive," Patil told reporters. "An attack on Mumbai is an attack on the rest of the country."

The attackers specifically targeted Britons and Americans at the hotels and restaurant, witnesses said.

Western visitors and Mumbai residents shuddered as they spoke of a night of terror, ducking under tables at luxury five-star hotels as staff members locked restaurant doors at the first rattle of gunfire and explosions in the lobby below.

Not far away, army commandoes in battle-ready camouflage uniforms battled attackers in black shirts and jeans carrying shoulder bags filled with ammunition at Mumbai's main railway station, which was filled with commuters waiting to catch trains home.

Twelve hours after the first shots were fired at about 10 p.m. at a busy Mumbai cafe, the terror attacks continued Thursday inside two of the city's best-known and most opulent hotels where terrorists still held hostages.

"We were at dinner when we heard shots fired. There was gunfire and explosions. We stayed on the floor, many were lying under tables, under furniture, and the hotel staff told us to be quiet," said Cheryl Robinson, a British tourist who was trapped inside Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel with two friends. "The hotel staff were stupendous. They locked the doors and warned us to sit tight."

She said restaurants and rooms were flooded with water after a pipe burst in the chaos of the gunshots and blasts. "We lay down in the water. We could hear the sound of people running outside. It was terrifying."

Seven long hours later, a barefoot Robinson shivered as she stood outside the burning but still majestic stone-columned hotel that belched out black smoke from shattered windows. Soldiers and firefighters helped her and several others to climb down ladders and escape the blazing edifice as the firing continued inside.

A clutch of weeping tourists from Spain, Italy and Britain, also barefoot, huddled together holding bottles of water and haversacks. They waved away journalists eager for news.

At another Mumbai landmark, the Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station, Nasim Inam's hands shook as he spoke of seeing commuters mowed down while walking to catch the late trains home.
 
Four young men carrying big guns and wearing black T-shirts and blue jeans rushed in, Inam said. "They just fired randomly at people and then ran away. In seconds, people fell to the ground."

Sobbing and shaking his head, he said the attackers were 25 years old at the most.

"They were so young. They were young boys," said Inam. "I was standing behind. I was just behind. If they had turned around, it would have been me."

Violence of this sort in India is often connected to the conflict with Pakistan over the disputed state of Kashmir - but there may have been another, broader dimension to these attacks, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips.

"It suggests that they have a plan, it suggests that they know who they want to attack, they have specific nations in mind - in this case the obvious ones are the U.K. and the U.S.," terror expert Sebastian Gorka told Phillips.

An Indian media report said a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen had claimed responsibility for the attacks in e-mails to several media outlets.

Terror officials have not heard of Deccan Mujahideen before today, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr. The attacks bear some frightening hallmarks of al Qaeda - a number of attackers working across multiple targets simultaneously resulting in a high death count.

Just a few miles (kilometers) away, eyewitnesses said gunmen hijacked a police van then opened fire on crowds that had collected near two hospitals close to the police headquarters.

"We felt the ground shake and heard the explosions," said Manish Tripathi, at a police cordon near one of the hospitals. "We heard a car speed up behind us, it was a police van, but the men inside were firing at us."

He said in seconds people around him were shot at. "Men were screaming that they had lost their fingers. There was blood all over," said Tripathi who escaped unhurt. "Some were shot in the leg, some on the shoulder or hand. I feel they are still screaming."

Inside the two Mumbai hotels and the railway station, green uniformed soldiers in helmets took over from the khaki-uniformed police who moved out to patrol the streets and warned residents to stay indoors.

The state government has ordered schools and colleges closed Thursday.

Opposite the multistory Oberoi hotel, a tense college student Preet Desai paced on a deserted promenade as dawn broke. He said a friend's father was inside the hotel at a business meeting when shots were fired.

"My friend is shattered. His dad is not answering his cell. What do we do?" said Desai. "Do you know anyone in the hotel who can give us information, any information?"

The motive for the onslaught was not immediately clear, but Mumbai has frequently been targeted in terrorist attacks blamed on Islamic extremists, including a series of bombings in July 2006 that killed 187 people.

Mumbai, on the western coast of India overlooking the Arabian Sea, is home to splendid Victorian architecture built during the British Raj and is one of the most populated cities in the world with some 18 million crammed into shantytowns, high rises and crumbling mansions. The Taj Mahal hotel, filled with Oriental carpets, Indian artifacts and alabaster ceilings, overlooks the fabled Gateway of India that commemorated the visit of King George V and Queen Mary.

India has been wracked by bomb attacks the past three years, which police blame on Muslim militants intent on destabilizing this largely Hindu country. Nearly 700 people have died.

Since May a militant group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen has taken credit for a string of blasts that killed more than 130 people. The most recent was in September, when explosions struck a park and crowded shopping areas in the capital, New Delhi, killing 21 people and wounding about 100.

Relations between Hindus, who make up more than 80 percent of India's 1 billion population, and Muslims, who make up about 14 percent, have sporadically erupted into bouts of sectarian violence since British-ruled India was split into independent India and Pakistan in 1947.

The U.S. State Department has set up a call center for Americans concerned about family members who may be in Mumbai. The number is 1-888-407-4747.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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