The government on Thursday equated the Mumbai terror attacks to a "war" thrust upon the nation and vowed to give a "befitting" reply to the perpetrators.
"We are considering the terrorists attack in Mumbai as a war and dealing the situation like war-time emergency," Union Minister of
State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal told reporters in New Delhi.
Jaiswal said all necessary action was being taken to get to the bottom of the incident and arrest the perpetrators of the heinous crime.
"We want to assure people that a befitting reply will be given to the terrorists," he said.
"The Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) himself has been monitoring the situation since last night and is constantly in touch with the Chief Minister (Vilasrao Deshmukh)," he said.
Jaiswal said apart from the 200 National Security Guard commandos, those from Navy and Army were also deployed in Mumbai.
"Firing at a few places is still continuing and we hope that everything will be over very soon," he said.
Asked about who were behind the terror attacks, the Minister said it was too early to say anything at present.