India mops up last of Mumbai militants

Public anger, mostly aimed at neighboring Pakistan, began to mount after elite Black Cat commandos killed four militants in a running gunbattle through a maze of corridors, rooms and halls in Mumbai’s best-known hotel.

They were the last of 10 gunmen who attacked Mumbai’s top two luxury hotels, its biggest railway station and several other landmarks with grenades and assault rifles in a rampage that began on Wednesday night.

Hundreds of people, many of them Westerners, were trapped or taken hostage. Twenty-two of those killed were foreigners. Commandos and rescue personnel were still cleaning up the wreckage near the still-smoldering Taj Mahal hotel when about 50 protesters began shouting anti-Pakistan slogans.

“Our soldiers came and Pakistan ran away,” they shouted, pumping their fists skyward. One waved an Indian flag.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has hinted that nuclear rival Pakistan may have been involved and evidence mounted the attackers may have hatched their plan there and come to Mumbai by sea.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, battling Islamic radicals in his own nation, told Indian television he would cooperate in the investigation.

“If any evidence comes of any individual or group in any part of my country, I shall take the swiftest of action in the light of evidence and in front of the world,” he told CNN-IBN television.

Many guests were trapped in their rooms in the Taj while the battle raged around them. They emerged to harrowing scenes.

“The blood, everywhere the blood,” an American woman called Patricia told the NDTV news channel, choking back tears. “And when we came down to the lobby, all the hundreds and hundreds of policemen were standing there looking so fried and so sad.”

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