But they were allowed nowhere near the building as Mumbai Police was worried about the Lashkar men inside hurling grenades or opening fire.

However, as reported in part 2 of this series, four Lashkar gunmen were holed up in room 632 for nearly two hours from 12.38 am and this was even known to the police through the CCTV footage at the Taj security control room. Moreover, there were about 120 armed policemen on the ground floor of the hotel, who, if not storm the sixth floor of the heritage wing and take on the terrorists, could have, at least, provided cover to the fire personnel to evacuate hostages. Instead, the firemen and their equipment sat in a lane to the south of the hotel until the first big fire broke out on the sixth floor of the heritage wing at 3.05 am.

“As soon as the fire started we began our operations and started dousing it,” said the officer who was in the team that reached the Taj first. “People inside were panicking and jumping from windows or tying bedsheets and curtains and using them to climb down. To its shock, the normally efficient Fire Department found that it had brought aluminum hanging ladders that could only reach a height of 15 metres or just below the third-floor of the hotel. Fire Department officials claim that they were not told that there were guests on the higher floors of the hotel until a woman came to a third floor window and indicated she wanted to jump out.

... contd.