PM meets Defence Secretary, Service Chiefs

New Delhi, Nov.29 : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday met Defence Secretary Vijay Singh,the three Service Chiefs and Chiefs of Intelligence agencies and discussed the impact of the Mumbai attacks and how such incidents could be prevented in the future.

Defence Secretary Vijay Singh, Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta, Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor, Naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta, Air Force Chief Air Marshal Homi Major, Coast Guard Director General Admiral R F Contractor and Intelligence Bureau Chief P C Haldar were present at the meeting.

Earlier, Home Minister Shivraj Patil also held a meeting with top officials of various forces and agencies and decision was taken to step up security measures along the coastline. The meeting was attended by the Home Secretary, the Naval Chief, the Coast Guard Chief, Army Vice Chief Lt Gen M L Naidu and Special Secretary (Internal Security) in the Home Ministry M L Kumawat.

In the meeting, a better co-ordination between the Navy, Coast guards and Police by an institutional mechanism was discussed. Security along the country's coast line is to be strengthened. Fishing boats which are registered with the port authority now have to be registered with the Police.

It was also officially revealed that 20 security personnels had died including ATS, NSG and the state Police force.While eight officials and security men are injured.

Kumawat, told media persons in New Delhi that the death toll in Mumbai is 183 including 22 foreigners and 239 people had been injured. Nine terrorists were killed in the operation by the NSG, he informed.Besides this, about 250 had been people rescued from the Oberoi-Trident, 300 from the Taj and sixty people freed from Nariman house.

A huge cache of arms and ammunition,including two AK 47's ,nine magazines of AK 47, two pistols and some mobiles phones were recovered from the terrorists at Nariman house. Two AK 47's, two pistols and three live hand grenades were recovered from the Oberoi.

ANI