The entire drama enfolded in the Taj, the Oberoi, the Nariman House and the rest of Mumbai has left me shell shocked and angry. I am angry with the system, the politicians, the media and the sheer intelligence failure. From the day of the event I am in front of this machine and slept very few hours in this entire episode of mindless terror.
It is not that I am a very patriotic Indian or an affected person, but these events happened the very vicinity of where I used to live in Mumbai longtime back and I felt violated and outraged. I used to frequent Leopold Cafe and the Taj and I am an ex-employee of the Taj, not in Mumbai but in Ooty. So the tragedy was very personal to me. These areas where the terrorists struck were the heart and soul of Bombay. The seafront, the old streets with cobbled pavements and those wonderful roadside cafes...
I would blame the entire event on the sheer lack of vision and intelligence on the part of the Government of India and the hoodwinking tactics of the present government. This threat perception was always there, the govt should have taken this seriously when the explosion happened in the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad and the should have given adequate security to these places. This was expected, but not of this magnitude of mayhem.
What would the police do when they just have archaic .303 rifles and lathies to fight a very well equipped and motivated bunch of terrorists. And what was their number 10 of them. Shame on the government.
There was a real lack of coordination, the NSG comes after nine hours of the attack and a lot can happen in nine hours. The heroic ATS chief went to take out the terrorists personally. The entire Mumbai police underestimated the capabilities of the motivated bunch. By the time the reinforcements came in, the terrorists took the time to position themselves and create maximum damage. The NSG comes in BEST buses and this was a shame. If they had landed in the Mumbai airport, they should have taken to the spot on helicopters and got into action without much delay. The terrorist had by then got the maximum upper hand and achieved what they set forth to do.
After the prolonged fight the only outcome was the media could generate all the TRPs and the readership count. What was the end result, nine terrorists dead, 16 odd service men dead and 195 innocent people dead.
After the 9/11 incident, has there been any attack in the US soil? None. That is the commitment they have and they were relentless in their pursuit to stop terror in their soil. How many more incidents should happen in India to get the machinery moving.
The shameless Times of India published that the readership and the number of visitors to their website has increased many fold and I wrote to them that do not gloat on the achievement and the NDTV was belting out the entire drama 24x7 and this is what I wrote to them, With my complete address...
I would blame the entire event on the sheer lack of vision and intelligence on the part of the Government of India and the hoodwinking tactics of the present government. This threat perception was always there, the govt should have taken this seriously when the explosion happened in the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad and the should have given adequate security to these places. This was expected, but not of this magnitude of mayhem.
What would the police do when they just have archaic .303 rifles and lathies to fight a very well equipped and motivated bunch of terrorists. And what was their number 10 of them. Shame on the government.
There was a real lack of coordination, the NSG comes after nine hours of the attack and a lot can happen in nine hours. The heroic ATS chief went to take out the terrorists personally. The entire Mumbai police underestimated the capabilities of the motivated bunch. By the time the reinforcements came in, the terrorists took the time to position themselves and create maximum damage. The NSG comes in BEST buses and this was a shame. If they had landed in the Mumbai airport, they should have taken to the spot on helicopters and got into action without much delay. The terrorist had by then got the maximum upper hand and achieved what they set forth to do.
After the prolonged fight the only outcome was the media could generate all the TRPs and the readership count. What was the end result, nine terrorists dead, 16 odd service men dead and 195 innocent people dead.
After the 9/11 incident, has there been any attack in the US soil? None. That is the commitment they have and they were relentless in their pursuit to stop terror in their soil. How many more incidents should happen in India to get the machinery moving.
The shameless Times of India published that the readership and the number of visitors to their website has increased many fold and I wrote to them that do not gloat on the achievement and the NDTV was belting out the entire drama 24x7 and this is what I wrote to them, With my complete address...
"I feel that the media is just a vulture feeding on the remains. Stop creating panic, anger and false emotions on each and every event unfolding. You people are putting words in peoples' mouth and getting the desired effect of all these. Your sense of sympathy and false anger is just to create TRPs and you have no sense of dignity. You have to report facts as facts and call a spade a spade. This is like a movie orchestrated live. Ask Barrka Dutt to go to sleep and stop this entire breast beating. Regardless of any incident the police, the army and now the case of NSG has been doing their duty. This media will celebrate and glorify these brave men and start complaining about their highhandedness and start criticizing their vulnerability to accept bribes in few days from now. You are the scourge of this country and the bane of this country. I really feel outraged by the false sense of concern and the drama enacted there in the middle.
I know you will never publish this letter nor give a reply and I do not care a damn."
I wanted to write to the CNN IBN as well, but I thought what is the use these vultures will still continue on feeding the dead.
This was a reaction of my friend whom I spoke to when I saw her status message...
me: Hi xx :)
You seem to be depressed.
xxxx: yes..about the terror attacks
me: oh yeah I am just watching it
xxxx: religion is the worst mistake humans ever made
10:47 me: I was up till 4 am
xxxx: it does not help me in my day to day life
me: yeah true
xxxx: how does it matter if all are the same religion?
me: yeah true
things are very tough nowadays
I am utterly flabbergasted and angry
10:48 This is the result of total lack of intelligence
and the entire police were distracted
with other issues
10:49 xxxx: it is a sad state of affairs
me: true
xxxx: we need to pull up our socks and do something
we just cant talk
i am willing to do anything now
me: yeah
xxxx: only thing that stops me is that i would not want my family to be affected
me: yeah hey take it differently
10:50 it is affecting everyone
but it is tough to do something about it
there are people working on that and these terrorists have no religion and they are just beasts
10:51 xxxx: no...
me: Hey take care and be put at where you are
xxxx: it is religion that turns them into beasts
10:52 they don't have money
so religious leaders take that as a plus
and leer them
so they do anything for money to provide for their family
it is better to adopt the christian way
pay ppl to convert
rather than terrorise to convert
me: this issue is much deeper
I get your point of view
I am really being pessimistic and the events like this is going to occur repeatedly unless the intelligence is fortified, the police force is upgraded with latest guns, proper communication and advance threat perception mechanism put in force.
This entire event has left me frustrated, angry and impotent. I am going to leave this post without any conclusive end because this really has no real end, I mean the mindless terror.
Please see my earlier post in this blog, where I put my response to an article criticizing the Indian Police and their highhandedness in the bombing investigations...
This entire event has left me frustrated, angry and impotent. I am going to leave this post without any conclusive end because this really has no real end, I mean the mindless terror.
Please see my earlier post in this blog, where I put my response to an article criticizing the Indian Police and their highhandedness in the bombing investigations...
2 comments:
Hi Sastha,
Quite true,,,what you wrote. Every Indian feels helpless since whom do we turn to? Politicians..? Police..? NGOs...? Armed Forces..?
While people take pride in our democracy and the ability of 'people' to 'throw out' non performing representatives every five years..the choice that we have to select from make it a no pointer! Till we get to choose our reps from a talented and honest pool, elections will continue to be a farce. We as a nation need the following urgently...
(a) Electoral reforms that prohibit anyone and everyone from contesting..only virtuous need to be allowed.
(b) Possibly think of the system in US where the top guy picks up his team from a pool of professionals.
(c) Revamp of the police force and free it from political influence of any kind
(d) While equipping and training of police with new weapons will take a lot of money and time, a timed action plan will do a lot of good.
(e) Bring in some kind of clamp on the media that sensationalises every damn happening in this country. If you had seen NDTV "big Fight' yesterday, Mr Arun Shourie put Vikram Chandra and his team in place with an opening remark and quitely walked out of the show. I feel we were getting correct news when we had our sole DD!
(f) Treat every life as important as ones own and start honouring our men in uniform (armed forces, police, raf, crpf, bsf, cg...) for what they do..just lip service will not do.
(g) Revamp curriculam in the school and teach children sense of duty and responsibility, pride in ones motherland and hygiene.
Probably, the list will be endless, but these cannot be overlooked for our own future.
Sabesan, thank you for visiting my blog and whatever you said makes absolute sense and if these kind of reforms happen and happen soon, there is hope. What you said of about DD is true, but again because of the politicians and lack of interest the DD is lagging behind very badly, in terms of quality of picture, sound and the variety of programs. This is not due to lack of funds, but absolute lack of vision and the feeling that this is govt and chaltha hai attitude.
Do visit a website called www.npr.org you can see how dignified are these people in bring out news and proper news without any masala.
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