India clears last Mumbai siege site

Mumbai: Authorities finished removing bodies from the Taj Mahal hotel on Monday, the final site of the Mumbai siege to be cleared.

Security forces searched the hotel for booby traps and bodies, and declared the building cleared two days after they killed the last three militants holed up inside.

Officials said 172 people were killed in three days of attack in Mumbai. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised to strengthen security and look into creating a new federal investigative agency.

"We were apprehensive about more bodies being found. But this is not likely all rooms in the Taj have been opened and checked," said Maharashtra government spokesman
Bhushan Gagrani.

The army had already cleared two other sites, the five-star Trident-Oberoi hotel and the headquarters of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish Centre.

The only gunman captured after the 60-hour terrorist siege of Mumbai said he belonged to a Pakistani militant group, a senior police officer said.

Joint Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria said the only known surviving gunman, Ajmal Qasab, told police he was trained at a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp in Pakistan.

A spokesman for Pakistani President Asif Zardari's spokesman dismissed the claim.