MUMBAI (AP): Authorities finished removing bodies from the bullet-and-grenade-scarred Taj Mahal hotel Monday, the final site of the Mumbai siege to be cleared, and said the death toll from the attack stood at 172 killed.

Security forces were scouring the 565 room hotel for booby traps and bodies, and declared the landmark building cleared two days after they killed the last three militants holed up inside following a deadly, three-day rampage in India's financial center.

``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 state government spokesman Bhushan Gagrani.

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

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

The gunman was one of 10 who paralyzed the city in an attack that killed at least 172 people and wounded 239 and revealed the weakness of India's security apparatus.``We have conducted the operation in the way we are trained and in the way we like to do it,'' he said.

Singh promised to expand the commando force and set up new bases for it around the country. He called a rare meeting of leaders from the country's main political parties, hours after the resignation of Home Minister Shivraj Patil.

Among the foreigners killed in the coordinated shooting rampage in India's financial capital were six Americans. The dead also included Germans, Canadians, Israelis and nationals from Britain, Italy, Japan, China, Thailand, Australia and Singapore.