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Billion plus people felt humiliated after 26/11: Chidambaram
A billion plus people felt they had been humiliated by the Mumbai terror attacks and the country had been brought to its knees by a small band of terrorists, Home Minister P Chidambaram said.
A billion plus people felt they had been humiliated by the Mumbai terror attacks and the country had been brought to its knees by a small band of terrorists, Home Minister P Chidambaram said on Wednesday.
"The security establishment was in disarray and numerous questions were being asked," he said.
"Had the intelligence agencies failed? Did the first responder, the Mumbai police, prove to be totally inadequate? Was the famed National Security Guard too slow to get off the block?
"Did the leadership of the police let down its men? Did the security forces take too long to neutralise ten terrorists? Did the Central and State Government fail to provide strong leadership?" he said, delivering the 'Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment Lecture' here.
Summarising the situation as he found it on December 1, last year, he said, "Two days after the terrorist attack in Mumbai was repulsed - after paying a heavy price of 164 lives - the nation was in shock and anger.
"Did the crisis management system collapse? Did the country pay too heavy a price before it repulsed the terrorist attack? Did the Government fail the people in not mounting a swift counter-attack on the perpetrators of terror?
"These questions continue to haunt me and many others even today. I think I have found the answers to some of these questions, but I do not intend to fill this lecture with those answers," he said.
