Hyderabad has been once again rocked by twin blasts. Innocent lives have been lost. Our national pride has been dented. Somehow, such tragedies draw a familiar and set piece response from all of us – the politicians, intelligence sleuths and the gullible public.
The composition of the explosive used and its similarity with the previous blasts will be told to the media in a record time, as if the information is urgently needed to find an antidote to save precious lives.
Everybody would fall over each other to condemn the dastardly attack. I am not suggesting that it should be praised, but the urgency and dispatch to find place amongst the statements of the high and mighty, in the next day’s newspapers makes it look insincere. Leaders will make an air dash to be the first one to reach the blast site and the hospitals to get photographed with the victims. After sometime, hospitals will discharge these victims without complete treatment and proper rehab.
The state chief minister would dutifully announce the ex-gratia for the dead and wounded. As if, the kith and kin of the victims would miss their next meal without such proclamation. It is another story that getting the promised sum in itself is a Herculean task, which the anguished claimants would realise later.
The intelligence sleuths will claim that they had prior knowledge and their prediction has come true. In all meetings and briefings they will give “I told you so” look, trying to look down upon the clueless police. Not to be left behind, the police will sound the proverbial “red alert” after all the miscreants have decamped and gone beyond the reach of “the long arm of the law keepers”.
The composition of the explosive used and its similarity with the previous blasts will be told to the media in a record time, as if the information is urgently needed to find an antidote to save precious lives.
Our threat perception will remain rooted to high-value targets and the collective security of the common citizen will continue to suffer.
Everyone will mill around the blast site to trample the evidence and clues that might be important for the investigation. What investigation agencies get to look at is a thoroughly rummaged and intruded place, where piecing together the entire matrix of events will be almost impossible.
Someone from the government (with little or no knowledge and aptitude) will tell with amazing conviction that the blast was a handiwork of a foreign power. Speed with which we arrive at such diplomatically sensitive conclusions is amazing.
| Editor’s Pick |
The opposition will call for a bundh, so that lumpen elements also get a fair chance to convert the tragedy in to a communal riot or some other law and order problem. Then the resignation of the chief minister will be sought in the house by staging a walk out.
To assuage the feelings of the public and save their face, the police will claim to have found vital clues and leads, which with the passage of time will grow cold and leave our policemen “clueless”.
Terrorists live amongst us, draw sustenance from us and enlist our own brethren to attack us and yet, they remain out of our reach. Do we have a resolve to chalk out a comprehensive anti-terrorism strategy, which is above the religion, region and political biases.
Compare this one with the 7/7 train blasts in London. The dead and injured were promptly evacuated from the site. The explosion sites were barred till the investigators did not complete their job. No one spoke out of turn; nor did the media harangue leaders and officials for an instant byte. The opposition behaved responsibly in the hour of crisis and later on took the government to task in the House of Commons. The investigators followed every lead till they “zeroed on” the perpetrators.
Within a week or so the memories of the blast and its victims will be erased from our minds. The media will chase some other story. We will again throng public places oblivious of the lurking danger and flout security norms in the name of personal freedom. Everyone will praise our resilience as a society, that we did not let this tragedy affect the Sensex – perhaps the only denominator of national well-being and solidarity. As a nation we will go into a collective amnesia till the next tragedy strikes.
But no one would take concrete steps to improve policing and intelligence gathering and to enforce strict security at public places. Our threat perception will remain rooted to high-value targets and the collective security of the common citizen will continue to suffer. Presence of terrorism on the Indian soil is worrisome and its manifestation in the hinterland is grave. Terrorists live amongst us, draw sustenance from us and enlist our own brethren to attack us and yet, they remain out of our reach. Do we have a resolve to chalk out a comprehensive anti-terrorism strategy, which is above the religion, region and political biases.
Please wait...
