India's response to 26/11 inadequate: US advisor

Washington: Terming India's response to the Mumbai terror attack as "inadequate," an influential policy advisor has suggested that New Delhi set up a body on the lines of America's National Counter-terrorism Center and the

US could possibly render assistance in this regard.

While lauding the legislative step of setting up a national investigative agency, Ashley J Tellis, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the effort lacked on preventive aspects of terrorism.

Testifying before Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Tellis said post-Mumbai India should create an institution like the National Counter-terrorism Center in the US.

"I think the legislative response that they have engaged is quite inadequate, because what they have in effect done is that they have created a new investigative agency to deal with the problems after they have occurred an agency that would essentially bring perpetrators to justice," Tellis said

responding to a question from the Committee Chairman Senator Joseph I Lieberman.

Creation of a national investigative agency is important, but it does not help India with its old problem in terms of prevention, he observed.

"They still have to create something like the equivalent of National Counter-terrorism Center (NCTC).

They have not done that yet," Tellis said. Indian officials, he said, are

still struggling with the issue of classification.