Indian forces may have killed some hostages: Report

Jerusalem, Dec 2 (PTI) Close on the heels of controversy
arising out of Israel's criticism of Indian forces' handling
of the hostage crisis during terror attacks, the head of an
Israeli rescue and recovery team in Mumbai has alleged that
the Indian commandos may have inadvertently killed one or more
hostages at Nariman House, a media report here said.

"Based on what I saw, (although) I can't identify the
type of bullets in the bodies [of the victims], I don't think
the terrorists killed all the hostages, to put it gently,"
Haim Weingarten, head of the six-member team of ZAKA,
voluntary organisation dealing with rescue and recovery, told
'The Jerusalem Post'.

Speaking on phone from Mumbai, Weingarten told the 'Post'
that all the six Jewish and Israeli hostages found dead in the
Chabad House were killed by either gunshot wounds or shrapnel
from grenade blasts, or both, and that he didn't know who
threw or fired the grenades that wounded the hostages.

Although lacking forensic tools to determine the time of
death, Weingarten said that his team's observations led him to
believe that "some of the hostages were killed on Wednesday
(when gunmen first entered the building), some on Thursday,
and some on Friday morning (during the start of the commando
raid)," the report said.

ZAKA officials believe that in a final act of love, the
director of the Chabad House, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, wrapped
the body of his wife Rivka in a tallit (prayer shawl) before
succumbing to his own wounds during the final hours of the
siege, it said.

The volunteers on the scene found the bodies of Israeli
grandmother Yocheved Orpaz (62) and Jewish Mexican national
Norma Shvarzblat Rabinovich (50) bound to one another with a
phone cord. PTI