Police involvement in Mumbai killings

Guests trapped in Mumbai's Taj hotel, in November 2008, have told the BBC they were given instructions by police that apparently led to the gunmen being able to shoot more people . (BBC NEWS World South Asia Deaths from Mumbai 'police error')

A survivor said guests were shot and killed by the militants after police said it was safe to leave.

Top Mumbai gynaecologist, Dr Prashant Mangeshikar, barricaded himself into a room and waited.

Police officers told people it was safe to leave the hotel because the gunmen were cornered on another floor.

Some went ahead but Dr Mangeshikar held back.

"I was a little suspicious that the police were actually sending these guys down a different route where the terrorists were supposed to be," he told the BBC's Adam Mynott.

"I refused to move away and the people who ran ahead of me, about 20 or 30 of them, all of them died."

A dress designer from the city says her aunt was shot dead and her cousin seriously wounded because they followed police instructions to try to leave.

The designer, Shilpa, described the police conduct as disgraceful.

They had no right, she said, to risk people's lives.

The government of India's Maharashtra state has announced an investigation into two senior policemen over alleged failure to act on warnings of the attacks.

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