"Rampur district officials some time ago had met the CRPF officials and asked them to take necessary precautions and the incident indicates laxity on their part," she said and termed the attack as an act of cowardice.

Refusing to accept the attack as a failure on the part of her government, Mayawati said the state government had acted in accordance with the intelligence input about the threat perception to the CRPF camp and had also alerted the officials of the CRPF camp and ‘failure, if any, is on their part’.

Asked as to how terrorists reached the camp, the Chief Minister said even if the terrorists had reached the camp it was the duty of the CRPF, who had already been informed of the threat, ‘to teach them (terrorists) a lesson’.

In a pre-dawn attack, heavily-armed militants on Tuesday struck at a CRPF camp in Rampur, killing eight persons, including seven security personnel, and laving five others injured.

Stressing the need for Centre's help in dealing with the rising cases of terrorism in Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati requested the Centre to work together in countering the challenge.