Mumbai Terror Attack – The positive and negative awakenings

The devastating terror attack in Mumbai resulted in both positive and negative awakenings.


First, the positive awakenings –

This attack gave us an opportunity to know about the excellence and skills of our security personnel, especially the marine commandos and the commandos of the famed NSG (National Security Guards). The adeptness with which they have handled the situation has boosted our confidence and faith on them to no extent. We now know for sure that our commandos are among the best in the world.

This terror attack also gave us a chance to know that our country still has brave and courageous people like Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte, Vijay Salaskar, Major Unnikrishnan and Gajendra Singh, who can unhesitatingly lay down their lives for the sake of their motherland. Not that we ever had any doubt about the existence of such people in India. We have witnessed the selfless supreme sacrifices made by a host of young soldiers at the time of Kargil war. And even now, almost every other day we get the news of brave Indian soldiers laying down their lives in the border areas while fighting terrorist elements. However, the martyrdom of the security personnel handling Mumbai terror attack has inspired the Indian youth in a significant manner, encouraging them to play whatever roles they can play for the service of their great motherland.

Now, the negative awakenings –

The incident has highlighted serious lapses in the Indian intelligence network, apart from bringing into light flaws in the functioning of the Indian Coast Guard.

Hopefully the concerned agencies will undertake a thorough assessment of their infrastructure and functioning style, identify the loopholes and rooms for improvements, and address the same. Good luck to them.

The incident has also highlighted, for the umpteenth time, the extreme inefficiency of our honourable Home Minister, Mr Shivraj Patil. That nation is really cursed where the responsibility of internal security is in the hands of incompetent persons like Shivraj Patil and Prakash Jaiswal, who so perfectly exemplify the phrase “Good For Nothing”.

Photo Courtesy - media.ft.com

This Time They Strike At Assam

The terrorists are continuing with their disruptive activities in full swing. After a brief break they have struck again – this time at the beautiful state of Assam in the picturesque North East.

The postmortem of the situation has already started, with the usual constituents like blame gaming and scapegoating. And as usual the common people are not interested in all this, as it can neither undo what has happened nor apparently prevent the repetition of that. What they want the authorities to do is a meaningful analysis of the security and intelligence mechanism/infrastructure, identify the rooms for development and address the same. But will our great leaders do that? I am not sure whether I can be much hopeful about it.

After all what can we expect when we have an ultra-incompetent and unenterprising Home Minister like Mr. Shivraj Patil, who is in his position not because of any administrative acumen (which he does not have in the first place), but simply because of his unquestioned loyalty to “Madam”? With such a weak and inept person in charge of internal security, there is little wonder that the terrorists are having a field day.