Taj Hotel secured as siege over

MUMBAI: Security forces freed the landmark Taj hotel here after an intense night-long firing amid a series of explosions, with three terrorists Smoke and flames billow out of the Taj Mahal hotel moments after the hotel was freed from terrorists.

Officials say the death toll in the terrorist attacks on Mumbai has risen to 195 as more bodies have been discovered after commandos ended the siege on a luxury hotel.

Shantaram Jadhav, an official at Mumbai's disaster control office, says 195 people have been killed and 295 wounded.

Jadhav says ``the death toll is likely to rise because there arestill bodies in our vans that are being brought into hospitals.''

The operation to flush out terrorists from Taj Hotel is over, signalling an end to the 62-hour siege by terrorists three of whom were killed this morning in an assault by the elite commandos of National Security Guards (NSG).

However, the NSG is still sanitising the hotel to check if any remaining terrorist or explosive is still in the 400-room hotel, NSG Director General J K Dutt told reporters.

An AK-47 rifle was also recovered from them. "There was lot of shooting. Grenades were lobbed and explosives were used by the terrorists," he said.

On whether all the terrorists have been killed and hotel is now free, he said that it could be ascertained after the combing operation is over.

During the night, terrorists holed out in the hotel engaged in a fierce gun battle with security forces as some places in the first and the ground floors of the 565-room building set afire by terrorists amid explosions in the over 100-year-old heritage complex in the Colaba area.

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