Just another day at work?

8220;The operation was difficult because at night, it would be pitch dark and we couldn8217;t see anything.

8220;The operation was difficult because at night, it would be pitch dark and we couldn8217;t see anything. The terrorists had put some of the rooms on fire and the hotel was filled with smoke,8221; an NSG commando told The Sunday Express minutes after the Taj Mahal hotel operation protocol doesn8217;t allow them to reveal identities.

8220;It took us over three days to kill four terrorists because of the layout of the hotel and the number of people who were holed up inside,8221; said the 27-year-old from Haryana. 8220;But we are trained to stay without food and sleep for a week and that helped us ever since we entered the hotel on Thursday morning,8221; he said.

On the high death toll inside the hotel, the commando said the terrorists would booby trap victims8217; bodies with grenades.

The commando spoke nonchalantly on how his team went for the kill. 8220;The terrorists seemed very familiar with the place. We finally trapped them on the first and ground floors. All this while, they kept throwing grenades at us. But we did a 8216;control explosion8217;, which led to a fire in two restaurants. Two of the terrorists were charred to death and one collapsed of asphyxiation and we shot him dead,8221; he said.

Did he ever fear for his life8212;wish he weren8217;t there? 8220;Hum toh sirf yehi kaam kartein hai, dar nahin lagta This is our job, we are not scared,8221; he smiled. He then packed up and boarded the BEST bus that was waiting to take him to the airport, from where he would leave for Delhi.

Another commando8212;who was involved in the Nariman House operation and who was waiting for his colleagues at the Taj hotel to finish theirs8212;talked about his experience. 8220;It was a critical operation as the building was surrounded by other residential buildings. There was no question of entering through the gate as the terrorists kept lobbing grenades at us. So we decided to launch an aerial attack,8221; he said.

The 25-year-old commando hailing from Rajasthan had abseiled down from the NSG chopper onto the rooftop of Nariman House. 8220;When we landed on the rooftop, we thought the operation would be over in a few hours. But when they opened fire and started throwing grenades at us, we knew we were in for a long haul.

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The hostages, he said, had been shot from close range. 8220;Their hands were tied behind their backs and from their bodies, it appeared they hadn8217;t been shot at the same time.8221;

The terrorist were well trained, the commando said, and never stayed together. 8220;They were thorough professionals in that they never attacked first, which meant that they didn8217;t ever disclose their location. The two terrorists were not on the same floor. When the light began fading out on Friday, our commanding officer CO decided to blow up the entire third floor, which finally led to their death.

Is he relieved it8217;s over? 8220;Yeh saab toh humareliye kuch naya nahin hai.8221; Just another day at work?