By Soutik Biswas BBC News, Mumbai

Panic swept Mumbai after false rumours of more attacks in the city

Inside the Mumbai police control room, assistant commissioner Ramesh Chango Tayde remembers the first telephone call they got from a panicky man who said he had heard the sound of gunfire at the city's Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station.

It was exactly 2121 on Wednesday when the call arrived.

The dour chief of the control room flashed the information to the 500-odd police vans patrolling the city.

For the next few hours, Mr Tayde and the 40 other men in khaki uniforms who staff the police nerve centre in India's financial capital took calls about the attacks taking place all over the city.

"It was the toughest night I faced since the day of serial train blasts in the city in 2006. That was my first day as the chief of the control room," says Mr Tayde.

"We have been very, very busy ever since," he says. He has not returned home since the attacks began.

Growing fear

On average, the 20 toll-free lines in the bustling control room receive more than 15,000 calls a day from citizens reporting anything from murders, thefts and burglaries to neighbourhood brawls, spousal tiffs and domestic violence.

Since the attacks, the number of calls has jumped by a quarter, says deputy commissioner AV Jadhav.

Skittish residents are calling up and talking about "people moving around suspiciously, unattended bags and packets lying around and other perceived threats".

I saw him firing on an old man next to him. I don't know what happened to the old man. I ran out of the exit door, but my husband was left behind Madhu Kapoor Mumbai frozen in shock How the Mumbai attacks unfolded

"People are suffering from a lot of anxiety and fear. We have to deal with all these calls and send our men out to check whether their fears are true," he says.

This in a city where, according to the police, barely a fifth of the calls received every day by the control room require attendance.

The frenzy of calls hints at the growing fear in Mumbai after the attacks.

On Friday afternoon, the control room received a flurry of calls from people saying that some gunmen had gone on another shooting spree in a few places, including the railway station.

The information was found to be wrong - triggered by rumours swirling around the city in the wake of the attacks.

But the rumours were powerful enough to set off a fresh wave of panic.

Offices, schools and shops shut down and people scurried home. By late afternoon, downtown and south Mumbai had emptied.

Offers of help

Amid the clamour of ringing phones and the crackle of wireless in the control room, Mr Tayde receives a call from the city of Baroda, in the neighbouring state of Gujarat.

"Why don't you send in some of your men inside the Taj hotel with teargas shells and start setting them off in the corridors?" the caller asks.

"This will be a good way to overpower the gunmen," the man on the line advises.

Mr Tayde mumbles something in reply, and puts down the phone with a hint of exasperation on his face.

Police phone lines have been jammed with calls of suspicious activity

"After the attacks, people have been calling up the control room from all over the country and giving us advice on how to take on the gunmen and handle the situation," he says.

The callers are ordinary citizens or sometimes retired army and police officers.

But then he also got a call from a woman in the city saying that her husband wanted to help in the operation at the Oberoi-Trident hotel to take out the gunmen.

"My husband did the interiors in the hotel," she told the police.

"If you want any help with the layout of the hotel in planning your rescue operations we can help."

There have been calls from as far away as Nagpur, Delhi and even London, from people with advice for the police on how to handle the situation.

"These people are usually well-meaning citizens who are all charged up after the attacks and want to help with suggestions. And we are getting a lot of such calls after the attacks," says Mr Tayde.

Some of the callers are anxious relatives and friends of people trapped inside the hotels taken over by the gunmen, trying to discover the fate of their loved ones.

'I ran'

Across the city, sitting on the sidewalk outside the Oberoi-Trident hotel, was Madhu Kapoor, wife of a banker trapped inside the hotel.

She was relying on a helpline set up by the hotel for any information about her husband.

Mrs Kapoor and her husband, Ashok, were dining at a restaurant with another couple when the gunmen stormed the hotel.

Mumbai is an anxious city since the attacks

The diners were asked to leave the restaurant and run.

As she ran out with her husband and scores of other people, she saw a man with an automatic weapon behind her in the scrum on the stairway.

"Wait," the man told Mrs Kapoor.

"I ran. I saw him firing on an old man next to him. I don't know what happened to the old man. I ran out of the exit door, but my husband was left behind."

On Friday morning, the hotel informed her that her husband was safe. But she is still waiting for him to come out.

Back at the control room, assistant commissioner Tayde and his men, working gruelling shifts, are hoping that the drama of terror ends soon and the phones stop ringing.

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