Cabinet colleagues grill Shivraj Patil

Amidst expressions of concern by the Union Cabinet on the Mumbai serial blasts, Home Minister Shivraj Patil had to answer some tough questions by his Cabinet colleagues on how such a big terrorist attack was carried out despite the fact that there had been enough warnings of one.

The Cabinet meeting started with a two-minute silence for the victims of the Mumbai and Srinagar blasts. After this, Patil and National Security Advisor M K Narayanan presented the sequence of events of Tuesday evening's attack in Mumbai.

According to a senior Cabinet minister, Patil placed the blame squarely on the terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba. "The home minister admitted that there was a need to spend more money on countering terrorist activities as also on intelligence gathering," said a senior Cabinet minister.

Sources confirmed that Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav suggested that not just money, but the government's 'attitude' needed to be made tougher.

"The railway minister also promised that he would also be toughening up railway security, and that both the home minister and he would be making a detailed presentation on both the issues at a Cabinet Committee on Security meeting to be held a couple of days later," said the senior minister.

Sources also said that Lalu's exhortation to the UPA to act tough was taken up by several UPA allies.

"He articulated the widespread feeling that the government needed to look like it was tough on terrorist, regardless of statistics," said a source. As part of the exercise, the PM will be visiting Mumbai on Friday.

Later in the day, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also met President Abdul Kalam to brief him on the incident.