MUMBAI- A NEWSPAPER photographer told a court on Monday how he came face to face with two of the Mumbai attacks gunmen as they brought carnage to the city's main railway station.

Sebastian D'Souza said he had been heading to the Taj Mahal Hotel on the evening of November 26 last year following reports of gunfire but diverted to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus when he heard shooting there.

'The sound came from inside. Then I heard a big bang,' the 56-year-old picture editor with the Mumbai Mirror tabloid told a special prison court trying Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Kasab.

'I crossed the road, jumped over the divider and entered (the station) through the side door at platform number one. It was empty. There was nobody on the platform.'

Mr D'Souza said he heard gunfire from the mainline train platforms and saw a uniformed police officer and another in plain clothes who were also trying to locate the source of the firing.

'There was some firing. I saw two figures coming with backpacks. It was backlit so they were dark figures,' he told prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam. 'They started firing towards a ticket window. I didn't know who they were. Then I realised they were the terrorists.'

Mr D'Souza said the officer in plain clothes fired a shot at the gunmen about 30 metres (100 feet) away. They fired back with their AK-47 assault rifles, hitting a bookstore owner who was desperately trying to pull down his shutters, he added.

Mr D'Souza then took refuge in the ladies-only compartment of a nearby train.

In all, he took more than 100 photos, cataloguing an attack that killed 52 people and injured 109 others at the terminus, the bloodiest episode in three days of violence in Mumbai that left 166 people dead. The photographs earned him an honorable mention in last year's prestigious World Press Photo awards.

Asked about one photograph taken from about 10 metres showing a short man wearing cargo trousers, a t-shirt and a backpack and carrying an AK-47, D'Souza told the court: 'It is accused number one (Kasab). How can I forget him? He made me famous,' he added. -- AFP