MUMBAI: Security forces yesterday raided two luxury hotels in India’s financial capital and battled terrorists room-by-room to free guests who were taken hostage 24 hours earlier.
Police said at least 125 people had been killed since Wednesday night when groups of terrorists struck at 10 different places in the city, including the two hotels and the main train station. Among the dead were top police officers: Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad chief Hemant Karkare, Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Kamte and Inspector Vijay Salaskar. Over 300 people have been injured.
The terrorists, whose exact number could not be ascertained by the police, were equipped with rocket launchers, satellite phones, AK-56 automatic rifles, a large number of grenades and ammunition.
Throughout yesterday there were exchanges of fire between police and the terrorists holed up in the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels. Until late yesterday, police had rescued some 300 people, most of them foreigners, from the two hotels.
Helicopters buzzed overhead and crowds cheered as the commandos, their faces blackened, moved into the Oberoi, where 20 to 30 people are thought to have been taken hostage and more than 100 others were trapped in their rooms. Huge flames billowed from an upper floor.
Earlier, explosions rattled the nearby Taj Mahal Hotel, a 105-year-old city landmark on the waterfront, as the troops battled the militants. Fire and smoke plumed from an open window.
In an address to the nation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hinted at a Pakistani role in the attacks and called people to remain calm.
A senior military official was more forthright. He said the terrorists came from Pakistan. “They are from across the border and perhaps from Faridkot, Pakistan. They tried to pretend that they were from Hyderabad,” Maj. Gen. R.K. Hooda, leading the military operation to flush out the extremists, told reporters.
Speaking outside the Oberoi hotel, Hooda, army chief for the western Indian states of Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat, said “one mujahid has been caught.”
“He has been injured. We are interrogating him. From his language ... he has a Punjabi kind of accent,” he added.
Police said the terrorists sneaked into the city from the sea after sunset on Wednesday, using speedboats. A cargo vessel, the officials said, dropped them off near Fishermen’s Colony. From there they dispersed in groups of five to different locations in the city to carry out the attacks.
Late yesterday, Naval helicopters intercepted the vessel off the coast of Gujarat, but the navy said it found nothing incriminating. Navy spokesman Capt. Manohar Nambiar said the ship had recently come to Mumbai from Karachi.
Pakistan’s defense minister said his country had played no role in the attacks. “In previous cases they acted like this, but later it all proved wrong,” Ahmed Mukhtar said. “We are very much positive that Pakistan is not involved in this.”
Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, in India for peace talks, also told the private Dawn television station that nobody should be blamed until investigations were complete.
Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is fighting Indian rule in Kashmir and is best known for an assault on the Indian Parliament in 2001, also denied any involvement. A militant holed up in a Jewish center in the city phoned a television channel to offer talks with the government for the release of hostages, but also to complain about abuses in Indian Kashmir. “Ask the government to talk to us and we will release the hostages,” the man, identified by the India TV channel as Imran, said, speaking in Urdu in what sounded like a Kashmiri accent.
“Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir? Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims? Are you aware how many of them have been killed in Kashmir this week?”
— With input from agencies
