The horrors within

The building was finally rid of terrorists and the damage within told the story of the fierce battle that had raged.

It had gone on throughout Friday night, with four or five terrorists still inside the hotel offering stiff resistance. The exchange continued into Saturday morning, even as busloads of additional NSG commandos reached the hotel.

In the morning, armed officials were spotted moving in the lobby and the rooms. At 7:20 am, smoke started spewing out of the first floor and the ballroom on the ground floor, following a heavy exchange of fire between the terrorists and the commandos in what appeared to be the final burst.

The first and the ground floors were soon in flames that threatened to spread to the other rooms and destroy the magnificent structure.

After getting clearance from the commandos inside, at 7:45 am, two fire brigade vehicles reached the hotel to put out the fire. They brought it under control in the next 15 to 20 minutes. There was intermittent rain when the fire brigade were dousing the flames.

Two hours later, NSG director general J K Dutt, at a press conference outside the hotel, announced that until combing operations were over and all the rooms, corridors and staircases thoroughly checked, the operation could not be declared as complete.

He also said that three terrorists and two NSG commandos were killed on Saturday during the final operation.

8220;We tried to capture the terrorists alive. But the kind of resistance they offered gave us no choice but to kill them. We had given them enough warnings to surrender,8221; Dutt said.

He added that a body that was pushed out of one of the rooms on the ground floor in the morning was that of a terrorist. NSG commandos had found an AK-47 with him.

Shortly thereafter, Senior Police Inspector Vishwas Rao of Colaba police station told the media that NSG would be destroying ammunition recovered from the terrorists.

This was followed by blasts inside.

The picture emerging from inside the rooms after the operations showed the huge magnitude of devastation during the 59-hour operation.

Outside, there was rubble everywhere and trapped in the debris were some dead pigeons.

Pigeons have been frequent visitors a regular feature outside the Taj, near the Gateway of India pavement. They have been spotted there for over 100 years. But during the gunbattle, the pigeons, shaken by the loud grenade explosions, gunshots, firing and smoke, besides the continuous presence of journalists and police personnel, were seen looking around, perhaps for their familiar feed of grams. Now that things are normal, the pigeons can hope to get their food, as usual, as scarred and numbed Mumbai struggles to come to terms with the devastation caused by the terror attack.