Advani summoned Mishra recently for a closed-door meeting at North Block. The meeting lasted about 30 minutes and ended with Mishra promising to give in the first report by the end of the month. The report, it is learnt, will concentrate on Sharma's links with bureaucrats and policemen.

The benchmark suggested by Advani to the CBI director, from where the investigating agency can pick up loose threads, is the seizure of 10 kg of Research and Development Explosive from Chhota Shakeel's farmhouse in West Delhi. The explosives were recovered on January 21, 1997. But as subsequent events showed -- Advani reportedly told Mishra -- the investigators (mainly officials of Delhi Police) slept over the case file.

The seizure, Mishra was told, exposed the citypolice's ineptitude. Documents seized from the farmhouse showed that Shakeel had made numerous calls to Romesh Sharma at the latter's house. Yet, Sharma was left alone.

Mishra has been asked to find and record why the Delhi Police ignored this vital tip for so long and what exactly happened in ``this period of inaction.''

One of the stumbling blocks for the investigators is the lack of clinching evidence of Sharma's links with politicians. Their few appearances in the video tapes -- not admissible evidence in court -- do not make out a water-tight case agaist them. Hence the focus (at least for time being) on his links with bureaucrats and police officials, which could be established through circumstantial evidence.

Meanwhile, Advani said, while concluding his election tour of Rajasthan this evening, that the enquiry into the Sharma case would be focussed on his association with top politicians, bureaucrats and police officials who allegedly provided him patronage. ``It was not possible for the man tooperate from Delhi as an ISI agent without this patronage,'' the Home Minister said.