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It will be a long haul
This is the fifth terrorist strike in India's premier metropolis since the horrific Mumbai blasts of 1993, the worst act of urban terrorism till 9/11.
These are times when you want to say the hell with political correctness and demand an eye for an eye. When you see your near and loved ones blown apart, your fellow citizens killed or maimed for life, praise for your spirit and sense of calm means little. This is something the government needs to understand clearly as it confronts the consequences of Tuesday’s serial bomb blasts in Mumbai. The scale of the attack, and the countless tragedies it has brought, demands something more from New Delhi than the mere mouthing of platitudes. There is need to tell our friends in the war against terror that enough is enough, and that something needs to be done urgently about the jehad factory next door. To tell them much more needs to be done to ensure that wanted terrorists sheltering there are rendered up to India. Within the country, there is need to confront the growing incidence of home-grown Islamic fundamentalist militancy. And for anti-terrorist legislation, with fool-proof guarantees against its misuse.
This is the fifth terrorist strike in India’s premier metropolis since the horrific Mumbai blasts of 1993, the worst act of urban terrorism till the 9/11 attack on New York. It means that the city is in the crosshairs of terrorists and there is need to completely overhaul the way in which it is run and policed. Take the local train system. The number of trains and passengers may have increased in the past 40 years, but stations and platforms to service the system have not. Large areas along the tracks have been encroached upon. This makes it difficult to control access to the system, leave alone provide security.
The police in Delhi, no paragons of virtue or efficiency, have instituted useful procedures to track strangers in hotels, localities and guest houses, and this has paid rich dividends. Mumbai Police, once the finest in the country, need to be woken up from their corruption-induced stupor. Politicians elected in the mofussil are the arbiters of the fate of the city, but their interest is in feeding off Mumbai’s rich pickings, rather than doing something to make it worthy of its hard-working and talented people. In these circumstances, talking of the never-say-die spirit of Mumbai would be a cruel joke. We will not. Instead, we insist that the governments — in the state and at the Centre — act to ensure that 11/7 will never be repeated.
