The death of Bombay’s top antiterrorist officer is a devastating blow to a police force struggling to confine a burgeoning Islamist threat.

Hemant Karkare, the chief of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, was shot three times in the chest as he led his men at the Taj Mahal Palace, one of the two luxury hotels overrun by heavily armed terrorists.

Mr Karkare’s decision to lead his troops from the front was typical of India’s anti-terrorism commanders. The country has a tradition of promoting police officers who specialise in “encounter killings” – a controversial form of extrajudicial justice used against suspected criminals. It is not unusual for such men to have dozens of kills to their name.

However, while Mr Karkare’s bravery is not at issue, the ability of India to stamp out terrorism is. Critics say the country’s underresourced security force is being pressured by polticians to produce quick – but not necessarily effective – results.

In September the Government admitted fallibility when it announced measures designed to plug what Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister, called “vast gaps” in its intelligence network, which relies on individual states managing their own anti-terrorism operations without the support of a national body.

The plans include the recruitment of thousands more policemen and the formation of a new nationwide counter-terrorism centre. But the overhaul did not come quickly enough to save Bombay, a city grown used to mass murder. India’s commercial capital, also known as Mumbai, has been hit repeatedly by terrorist attacks since March 1993, when Muslim bombers, allegedly linked to Pakistani militants, attacked the stock exchange, trains, hotels and petrol stations. They killed 257 people. On July 11, 2006, 200 died in seven more train blasts.

Wednesday’s terrorist “spectacular” is being seen by security analysts as the product of a logical – if terrible – evolution. They say that the sophistication of strikes carried out by Islamist extremists on Indian soil has rapidly increased this year.

Long before Wednesday’s events, Indian terrorist groups had begun to borrow tactics pioneered by al-Qaeda, including choosing soft foreign and economically sensitive targets such as hotels, according to experts.

This new generation of Indian militants first showed themselves on May 13, when seven blasts in 15 minutes in a tourist area of the northern city of Jaipur killed 63 in India’s deadliest terrorist attack in two years. Responsibility was claimed by the Indian Mujahidin, then an unknown group that has since become renowned for its barbarity.

In Bombay residents often complain that the police are massively corrupt and ill-motivated. Often they are seen with guns that resemble arms used in the First World War. On Wednesday, pitted against a well-organised, heavily armed militant force, they offered little resistance. By the time the more disciplined and better resourced army was drafted in, the terrorists already had a grip on the Taj Mahal Palace and Oberoi hotels.

Indeed, even as the Taj was under a “lockdown” as militants kept hundreds of hostages captive in the hotel, tourists and reporters were able to pass through the security cordon around the building. “It’s what you call an ‘Indian lockdown’,” Peter Keep, a Briton who lives near by, said. “Smile and you get through.”

A decision to relax security standards at the Taj days before the terrorist strike made the gunmen’s life easier still. That the gunmen knew this, and struck just as the guard was lowered, suggests that the site was being reconnoitred daily.

Indian intelligence sources have said that a “foreign hand” is behind the Bombay attacks – code for involvement by Pakistan. Many fear, however, that India’s security forces, under pressure to produce quick results, have cut corners and could also be culpable.

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