Indian Navy's elite Marine Commandos (MARCOS) have recovered a Mauritian national's identity card from the ruck sack of a terrorist, who escaped from the Taj hotel room, after an encounter with the security forces.

"We have recovered a rug sack of a terrorist, who escaped, after an encounter with the MARCOS and we found an identity card of a Mauritian national," Marine Commandos team leader, who was part of the operation, told reporters in Mumbai on Friday.

The ruck sack also contained Chinese made grenades, seven ammunition magazines, 400 spare rounds of ammunition, seven credit cards of different banks, dry rations and $1,200 and Rs 6,840 from inside the rug sack.

The recovered items were later handed over to the Mumbai police, the team leader said.

Indicating that the terrorists had done a recce of the targeted landmarks before their attack, the MARCOS leader said it was because of their knowledge of the building that the terrorists could escape from the hotel room after the encounter.

In the first ever press conference by the Indian Navy commandos, who have consciously kept a low profile for years, a masked officer said that he and his colleagues saw many people dead at the Taj hotel near the Gateway of India monument.

The terrorists, the officer said speaking haltingly in English, were firing indiscriminately from AK series automatic rifles and hurling grenades at the commandos inside the Taj hotel.

“Definitely they were trained. Not everybody can fire AK series weapons. Using such weapons and explosives, it is obvious they were trained somewhere,” said the officer who was dressed in black commando suits.

“These people were very, very familiar with the hotel layout. It appeared that they had carried out a survey (of the hotel) before. And they were a very well determined lot. Remorseless,” the officer added.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday that the terrorists, who struck at several places in Mumbai on Wednesday night, were based abroad. Indian officials have more specifically said the gunmen came from Karachi in Pakistan.