Mumbai hotel hero who saved guests dies

By Krittivas Mukherjee

MUMBAI (Reuters) - An employee of a Mumbai hotel who was shot trying to save guests during a 60-hour rampage by Islamist gunmen last week died from his wounds, doctors and relatives said on Thursday.

Rajan Kamble, a maintenance staff at the Taj Mahal hotel, died on Wednesday, exactly a week after gunmen attacked several places in Mumbai including two plush hotels, killing 171 people and wounding more than 300.

Kamble, shot in the back with the bullets perforating his stomach and spilling out his intestines, spent hours waiting for help. He and the guests with him were later rescued by commandos.

Kamble was near the Taj foyer when four gunmen burst in and began firing indiscriminately.

Recovering from the initial shock and chaos, he and other staff shepherded guests through the service section upstairs, only to suddenly come face-to-face with one of the gunmen.

When the gunman fired, Kamble, 48, was hit. The guests then made a dash for one of the hotel rooms to hide, dragging the wounded staff with them.

"If he wasn't there maybe one of us would have been hit," Prashant Mangeshikar, a doctor who was with Kamble during the crisis, told Reuters.

Kamble's intestine was a lump hanging from a gaping hole in his abdomen that the guests tried to push back using bedsheets.

As stories from inside the hotels have emerged, time and again guests say hotel workers shielded, hid or led them away from militants at the Taj and Trident/Oberoi hotels, the other one hit in the rampage.

The staff often proved essential, knowing shortcuts to safety and where emergency exits were located.

Kamble has worked with the 105-year-old hotel for almost two decades, and is survived by his wife and two children, aged eight and two.

"His wife is at a loss," said family friend Satish Patil, who came to collect the body. "We don't know what to say to her."

(Editing by Bryson Hull and Sanjeev Miglani)