EU parliament staff member wounded in India shootout

MADRID: A European Parliament staff member was wounded in the attacks in India's financial capital Mumbai in which scores were killed, a Spanish member of the parliament told Spanish public radio on Wednesday.

"We have a staff member of the (European) parliament wounded in the hospital," European Parliament deputy Ignasi Guardans told Spain's Radio Nacional network.

Gardans was interviewed as he hid in a restaurant with colleagues from an EU Parliament trade delegation. "This is happening right now. There has been an attack on several areas of Mumbai at the same time," Gardans said.

"The worst is that it seems that the terrorists are driving around Mumbai shooting in the air and hurling grenades from cars," he said.

"We arrived in Mumbai to have meetings tomorrow (Thursday), and ten minutes after leaving the hotel the shooting began in the same hotel we had left," Guardans said.

"The situation is not clear at all," he added.

The shooting also surprised the president of the regional government of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, as she registered with her trade delegation at Mumbai's Oberoi Hotel, local government sources in Madrid told said.

Hotel security agents evacuated Aguirre and her delegation to a safe location, the officials said.

Some 80 people were killed in a series of shootings and blasts across India's financial capital Mumbai late Wednesday, the state government said.