A British actor described yesterday how he survived the Bombay massacre after terrorists assumed that he was dead because he was covered in other people’s blood.

Joey Jeetun, who played one of the London bombers in a recent television dramatisation, was among hundreds of terrified Britons making their way home yesterday. Survivors described how the terrorists targeted Western tourists, with one couple claiming that gunmen used live television coverage to find those still hiding. Many of those who arrived at Heathrow were questioned by British police who are helping the Indian investigation.

Jeetun, 31, from Bethnal Green, East London, said that he owed his life to a stranger who jumped on him when the firing started at the Leopold Café.

“It sounded like they sprayed everyone and then looked to see who was alive and then started shooting at them on the floor,” he said.

Jeeton, who played the 7/7 bomber Shehzad Tanweer in a Five dramatisation, said: “After about five minutes it stopped and I opened my eyes. There were dead people next to me who had been shot in the head.” Indian police mistook him for one of the terrorists and he was locked in a cell for 13 hours until they were convinced he was a British tourist.

A Welsh couple claimed that an international television news channel put their lives at risk by broadcasting details of where they were hiding in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. Lynne and Kenneth Shaw, of Penarth, South Wales, said that they hid under tables as the terrorists stormed through the hotel.

Other survivors described barricading themselves in their hotel rooms for two days to escape the gunmen who were holding hostages near by.

Mark Abell, 51, a lawyer from London, described the scenes at the Oberoi hotel when he was led to safety by Indian commandos: “The lobby was carnage. There was blood and guts everywhere.”

For some Britons the physical scars will stay with them for life. Harnish Patel, 29, from Havant, Hampshire, was shot three times in a café and had emergency surgery yesterday.

His father Manashvi Patel, 56, said: “The gunmen gave no warning – they just walked into the café and opened fire with their AK47s. He was lucky he was at the back because all the people in front of him were killed. There were bodies and blood everywhere. Why did they do this?”

Sajjad Karim, a Conservative MEP who was forced to hide from the terrorists in a barricaded basement room of the Taj Mahal hotel, was greeted by weeping relatives at Manchester airport last night. Unilever chiefs’ narrow escape, page 77

Times Recommends

• Should Knox’s trial even have reached the courtroom?
• 'Was it real?' The US bailout nightmare
• Iranian opposition plays the long game