15 bodies seen in 1 room in Taj: Commando, says terrorists showed no remorse

Mumbai, Nov 28 (PTI) The terrorists who struck at Taj
Mahal hotel in India's financial capital Mumbai operated with
ease and showed no remorse and fired at anyone who moved, a
top marine commando said, adding he saw 12 to 15 dead bodies
in a single room at the luxury premises.

Giving an account of the commando raid at the besieged
Taj, the leader of Indian Navy's elite Marine Commandos
(MARCOS) Friday said his team saw about 50 dead bodies
scattered through the hotel during the flush out operation.
"12 to 15 dead bodies" were seen in one single room, he said.

"They were the kind of people with no remorse --
anybody and whomsoever came in front of them they fired," the
unidentified masked commando whose face was disguised in a
black scarf and sunglasses told reporters.

The account by the commando, who battled terrorists
room-to-room in the hotel, was the first of the fighting to be
given by a member of the elite operations unit since their
operations began in the wee hours of Thursday.

A Mauritius national's identity card was recovered
from the rucksack of a terrorist who escaped from a hotel
room, he said, adding the recovered rucksack also contained
Chinese made hand grenades, seven ammunition magazines, 400
spare rounds of ammunition, seven credit cards of different
banks, dry rations and USD 1,200 and Rs 6,840.

He said the commandos had been hampered by not knowing
the layout of the 400 rooms in the hotel and that the
exchanges of fire had taken place in darkness.

But, he said the terrorists who were hurling grenades
and firing from different floors and could not be seen because
of the darkness and were "operating with ease."

Indicating that the terrorists had done a recce of the
targeted landmarks before their attack, the MARCOS leader said
it was because of their knowledge of the building that the
terrorists were able to to strike at will.

The commando said the assault team had noticed only three
to four terrorists, who were probably operating from different
floors, as they were very well versed with the topography of
the Taj hotel, where they were holed up for nearly 40 hours.

He said the commandos could have got the terrorists but
for the presence of many guests.

"The bodies were lying strewn here and there. There was
blood all over and in trying to avoid the casualty of those
civilians, we had to be that much more careful," he said.

The guerrillas would have needed training to fire the
weapons they used, he said, adding "Definitely it appears not
everybody can fire the AK series of weapons." AK-47 rifles
were amogn teh weapons used by the terrorists.

Describing the physique of terrorists, the MARCOS leader
said they were not of a "big built" and were below thirty
years of age.

"They were wearing T-shirts and looked to be below 30
years and were of normal built," he said.

The MARCOS leader said the team had to face a problem in
dealing with the terrorists inside the hotel as they did not
know much about the building and had to take the help of the
hotel staff to operate there.

"We had to find our way out as we did not know the layout
of Taj. The hotel staff helped us to find our way inside
there," he said.

The team could not even get access to the CCTV monitoring
room that could have helped it in finding the exact location
of the terrorists.

"When we tried to enter the CCTV room, it was full of
smoke and entering it was not possible and terrorists were
also continuing with their fire," the team leader said.

The MARCOS leader said terrorists were taking advantage
of the darkness inside the hotel and continued firing whereas
they had to move ahead with caution to avoid civilian
casualties inside there.

"They were firing all over and people were getting
killed. We were also firing back at them but we had to be
careful as civilian casualties are to be avoided," he added.
PTI