MUMBAI, India - The coordinated terrorist attacks in India's financial capital ended today, with a former Loyola College professor and his daughter among the at least 195 people killed.
Orange flames and black smoke engulfed the landmark 400-room Taj Mahal hotel after dawn as Indian forces ended the siege in a hail of gunfire, just hours after elite commandos stormed a Jewish center and found six hostages dead.
"The Taj operation is over. The last two terrorists holed up there have been killed," Mumbai Police Chief Hasan Ghafoor told the Associated Press. Earlier, two suspected terrorists were killed and more than 140 hostages freed at the Oberoi, the other hotel that was targeted. Officials said the death toll rose to 195 as more bodies were discovered after commandos ended the siege on a luxury hotel.
Alan Scherr, 58, a former photography teacher at Loyola, and his 13-year-old daughter, Naomi, members of a spiritual community visiting from Faber, Va., were among at least 15 foreigners, including five Americans, who died during the attacks, Indian authorities said. Scherr and his daughter were killed while they were dining with friends at the Oberoi hotel's restaurant.
The two Americans were in Mumbai on a meditation retreat along with more than 20 other followers of the spiritual Synchronicity movement and its guru, Charles Cannon.
Before moving to Synchronicity's Central Virginia ashram with his wife, Kia, in the mid-1990s, Scherr lived in Silver Spring, according to property records. For six years he taught photography at Loyola's campus in North Baltimore, a college official said.
A brief biography attached to a New Age Web site article written by Scherr says he also taught art at the University of Maryland, but officials there could not confirm that yesterday.
"Alan committed most of his adult life to meditation, spirituality and conscious living," officials with the Synchronicity Foundation, which runs the ashram, said in a statement. "He was a passionate Vedic astrologer and meditation teacher."
Two other Americans and two Canadians on the retreat were injured, though most of the other members were barricaded in their hotel rooms after the shooting began and were rescued by authorities, said Bobbie Garvey, the ashram's managing director.
Kia Scherr did not travel to India; yesterday, hundreds of well-wishers from across the globe left messages of support for her on a tribute Web site, alanandnaomi.com.
