Indian cabinet approves federal agency to probe terror attacks

India's cabinet Monday gave the go-ahead for the creation of federal agency to probe all terror-related crimes as part of efforts to revamp national security in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, a report said.
After the government drew flak for failing to prevent the assault in which gunmen killed 163 people, India's home minister Palaniappan Chidambaram proposed setting up the National Investigation Agency as one effort among a raft of measures promised in parliament last week.
Monday's cabinet go-ahead for the agency -- akin to the American Federal Bureau of Investigation -- clears the way for Premier Manmohan Singh's government to introduce the measure in the parliament this week, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
Indian security agencies, long criticised for lacking a cohesive counter-terrorism strategy and poor intelligence gathering and analysis, came under renewed fire after the Mumbai attacks.
Faced with seething public anger, the federal government had apologised for the government's inability to detect the Mumbai plot, promising to rectify the intelligence lapses and "logistical weakness" that came to light during the 60-hour siege, with guards having taken several hours to reach Mumbai following the start of the attacks.
Chidambaram had said 20 counter-insurgency and anti-terror schools for training commandos would be set up besides opening new bases to station India's crack National Security Guard, the country's best-equipped counter-terrorism force, in addition to its headquarters outside New Delhi.
Measures proposed by the government include a coastal command to monitor the security of India's 7,500-kilometre (4,700-mile) coastline, in response to the gunmen's use of boats to enter Mumbai.
Indian officials say the militants were trained and sent by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group.