In the wake of the massive intelligence failure on terrorist attack in Mumbai, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday pulled up National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Intelligence and security heads and asked him to prepare a full brief for the cabinet committee on security meeting this morning.

The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) met at 7 Race Course Road with the intelligence agencies sharing their assessment on the attack and the possible perpetrators. The meeting was attended by RAW Chief Ashok Chaturvedi and IB Chief P C Haldar. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has already cancelled his elections meetings and is going to Mumbai of Friday.

At the time of going to press, the CCS was on and was to be followed up by a meeting of the full Cabinet.

Top Government sources said that the Prime Minister's concern was shared by Congress President Sonia Gandhi over the failure of the Intelligence agencies to either predict or prevent the attack.

Apart from the conjectures, the internal security establishment has little idea of the group behind the massacre and the conspiracy behind it except that it reveals a Lashkar-e-Toiba stamp with certain similarities to the 2001 Parliament attack. It appears that the terrorists used Argees grenades and AK-47 rifles, which are signature weapons of pan-Islamic jehadi groups.

While preparations are on at the Raisina Hill to prepare for the Cabinet meeting, the heat is on both Home Minister Shivraj Patil and M.K. Narayanan, known loyalists of the Nehru-Gandhi family. The Cabinet meeting is expected to be a heated affair.

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