British actor arrested after escaping real life Mumbai horror

A British actor who played one of the London suicide bombers in a TV documentary escaped death at the hands of real life terrorists in the Mumbai massacre before being detained as a suspect by police.

Actor Joey Jeetun, 31, who played suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer in a British television documentary 7/7: Attack on London, was in Cafe Leopold, the popular expat and tourist haunt near Mumbai's landmark Taj Mahal Hotel when attackers stormed both venues and other key targets on Wednesday.

The attacks left up to 195 dead, among them foreign hostages.

"I was scared I was confused I was distraught ... As an actor you can play a character but this wasn't playing, it was real," he told CNN.

In an interview with London newspaper The Times, he told how he survived the attack after terrorists assumed that he was dead because he was covered in other people's blood.

"After about five minutes (the shooting) stopped and I opened my eyes. There were dead people next to me who had been shot in the head," he said.

In the bloody and chaotic aftermath, police arrested Jeetun on suspicion of being one of the terrorists, he said.

"I was held in a police cell for 13 hours with a group of Arab looking men. They thought I was a suspect even though I said I was a British tourist," he told London's Daily Telegraph.

Jeetun was born and raised in London and his mother is from the tropical island of Mauritius, according to his website.

According to British media reports, Indian television news channel NDTV reported that "British citizens of Pakistani origin" were among the attackers who stormed two luxury Mumbai hotels and other key targets on Wednesday.

However these reports have since been denied.