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MUMBAI: Militants who staged multiple attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai, killing at least 125 people and injuring hundreds more, came from Pakistan, a senior military official said on Thursday.
"They are from across the border and perhaps from Faridkot, Pakistan. They tried to pretend that they were from Hyderabad," Major General R.K. Hooda, leading the military operation to flush out the extremists, told reporters.
Speaking outside the Trident/Oberoi hotel, one of the two luxury hotels where guests were taken hostage, Hooda, army chief for the western Indian states of Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat, said "one mujahedeen has been caught".
"He has been injured. We are interrogating him. From his language... he has a Punjabi kind of accent," he added.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier said that the militants had come from "outside the country" - a thinly-veiled reference to arch-rival and fellow nuclear-armed nation Pakistan.
He also warned in his televised address against "neighbours" who provide a haven to anti-India militants.
But Pakistan's defence minister immediately said his country had played no role in the attacks.
"In previous cases they have acted like this, but later it all proved wrong," Ahmed Mukhtar told AFP. "We are very much positive that Pakistan is not involved in this."
Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, in India for peace talks, also told the private Dawn television station that nobody should be blamed until investigations were complete.
"Our experience in the past tells us that we should not jump to conclusions," Qureshi said. "We should not go for a knee-jerk reaction."
India has in the past frequently accused Pakistan of backing Islamic militants active in India.
Militant Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is fighting Indian rule in Kashmir and is best known for an assault on the Indian parliament in 2001, also denied any involvement.
Gangs of heavily-armed men, claiming to be from a little-known group called the "Deccan Mujahedeen", opened fire and threw grenades at a number of locations across Mumbai, spreading fear and panic.
Hooda told reporters that one extremist was killed in a military operation to free an estimated 200 people trapped in the Trident/Oberoi. Five to six other militants were still inside, he added.
Some 49 people were rescued from the Trident/Oberoi on Thursday, Hooda said, while 50 people trapped inside the Taj were also brought to safety.
"They were not hostages because when we reached there, the militants had already left," he said.
In all, Hooda said there were "10 to 12 terrorists all over". - AFP/de
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