Terror bears its ugly head once again. Will we ever learn from our mistakes?

Its been a little more than a week since one of the most dastardly and gruesome acts of terrorism in history took center-stage in the city of Mumbai.

The sheer audacity of those inhuman terrorists, such pathetic excuses of human beings, to barge into our beloved city and open fire on innocent people as well as taking siege of two of the finest hotels on this side of the Western Hemisphere is well and truly shocking and something which we cannot even begin to comprehend. They had the guts to come right into the heart of the southern part of the city and create chaos and pandemonium amongst innocent civilians. Armed with a bag full of grenades, 300 rounds of extra ammo, and of course the dreaded Kalashnikov assault rifles, they had the guts to go to one of the most famous train stations in India and begin to indiscriminately fire a barrage of bullets on innocent citizens and create mass destruction. They had the guts to coolly walk in to the station, fire at will, and walk out of the place as if they bloody owned it. They had the guts to go to a Hospital and open fire there, the innocent nurses, doctors and the patients notwithstanding. They had the guts to shoot some of the Mumbai Police and ATS' top operatives, hijack their car, and drive their way through the streets whilst simultaneously opening fire at bystanders and shooting at police constables.

They had the guts to barge into the Oberoi-Trident and the Taj hotels and create havoc and absolute panic by firing nonchalantly at the people present inside. They had the guts to set up control rooms inside the aforementioned five-star hotels, talk to their bosses back in Pakistan(presumably) via Sat phones, and conduct their heinous acts of crime from there. They had the audacity, resilience and sheer determination to hold on and continue to engage in gun-battle for over 2 days with the NSG and Marine commandos, tremendously slowing down rescue operations. They had the guts to lob grenades and destroy a major part of one of the most priceless and historic hotels in the world. They had the audacity to bring 15 kgs of RDX around the Taj area, which, had it not been for our bomb-diffusion squad, would have been used by the assailants to absolutely ANNIHILATE the hotel premises. They had the guts to take control of a Jewish building and take hostages in a Rabbi and his wife. Their little cherub, cute little Moshe, was saved by a very very brave nanny. Otherwise there is no doubt that those heartless non-humans would have shot him dead too. They had the guts to stay in that building for over 2 days, eating tonnes of previously purchased dry-fruits and chicken, gulping down 35 grand worth of booze, and fire from their assault rifles and lob grenades at our commandos from time to time to scupper their rescue operations. They had the guts. They had the unbelievable daring to cover the city with a terror blanket. They were organized, well planned, and knew what they were doing. They were asked to fire and kill till their last breath, by their bosses back at base. They attacked at will. They were trigger-happy and shot every form of life around them. They had only one thing in their mind. Only one thing was recorded and played into their brains over and over again. To cause absolute destruction!

The question in all our minds is: "Why could they not be stopped?". The answer is up for debate, of course. Its been up for debate all this while. But there are a few things which are glaringly obvious. A few things which go a long way in giving us an appropriate answer to the above question.

The terrorists came via the sea-route, hijacking a trawler on their way, before entering Mumbai. Sources say they were asked to display documents by the port authorities. They duly obliged, and were allowed to continue on their mission. Just who were these "Port Authority" officials though? Plain-clothed fishermen who were asked to do the work since the actual officers never cared to come for their jobs? Well, i wouldn't bet against that if i were you. The Navy was warned of some movement off the coast. They were informed by locals about suspicious movement along the coastline. But it all fell on deaf ears. Or maybe they didn't think their intel was too accurate. Either way, the Navy acted irresponsibly, underestimated the clear and present danger, which led to utter carnage.

What were our other intelligence agencies around the country, like the RAW, State Intelligence, DIA, IB et al upto? Sources say the Mumbai Police was warned of imminent attacks on the financial capital of India by the IB. It is also claimed that the Mumbai Police knew that the Taj would be one of the targets and they "apparently" presented a list of measures that the hotel staff would have to take in order to counter the threat and prevent any such attack. They say the security was stepped up for a week. And then it all went dead. Why? Why was the security lessened in just a week? Did they expect the terrorists not to attack? Why did they take it lightly? Was it because their so called "informers" were not trusted? Was it because it was a one-off threat and the IB was bold enough to ignore it? Sounds to me that even though the intel was fairly accurate(as we know now), the IB, police and the hotel officials chose to take it lightly. In that case, maybe our intelligence officials were so poor in their approach to dealing with such threats. Why did they not have an extensive network of informants around the country to help back up these fragments of intel that they may have received, say, just by chance? Forget the Taj, why was security not stepped up at other places in the city, important train stations, airports, malls and so on?

When 21-year old Amir Kasav and his partner in crime announced their arrival at the CST with gunshots, our police could not counter them. Obviously, duh! How would they? What were they equipped with?? Maybe a couple of service revolvers and lathis. LATHIS. To protect people at the busiest train station in India. LATHIS. They were up against weaponry of utter sophistication. They were up against AK-47s. It was a case of David vs Goliath. Our police force had bullet proof jackets which couldn't contain pelted stones, let alone high velocity bullets. The late Hemant Karkare, our top ATS official, was provided with one of those vests and then he set off to fight the terrorists. It is like going to an examination without your pen. Actually, in this case it would be going to an examination with an old, faded, ballpoint refill. Because of this, we lost our top cops. We lost them within a flash. We lost the same people who do their best to protect us. And this is how our heroes are treated by the Government of India? Those terrorists were no mugs who roamed around with minor pistols or a couple of grenades. They meant business. And this is how we prepare ourselves to deal with them? The lives of gallant men like Karkare, Salaskar and Kamte were compromised! They were sent to fight TERRORISTS, and not your average Joe or your everyday Charlie who suddenly decided he wanted to fire from his toy gun, you morons!!!!!

It is disgusting!! The utter contempt i feel while writing this down is unreal to be honest. I have never ever felt this disgusted with our Government and of course, men who are unfortunately christened with the term, "politician".

Our response to the whole situation was lax. When the Mumbai Police finally realized who they were up against, they had no choice but to back off. Had the police acted on their own and tried to gun down the terrorists themselves, they would most certainly have gone on suicide missions. The army, Marcos, NSG and the RAF were summoned upon immediately. But just when did they arrive? They arrived when the terrorists had already achieved 70% of their objective. That's when! But what difference did it make when they arrived? They must have taken an eternity to decide a plan of action. The Marcos who were sent inside the Taj didn't even have a layout of the hotel. They were going into unknown territory. They were going into a dark room basically! To fight terrorists. To rescue hostages and people who had miraculously survived the initial wave of attacks by the terrorists!!

The fact that it took them more than 2 days to bring an end to this torture says it all. Sure our commandos were brave. That must most definitely not be overlooked. They were brave and daring and rescued as many people as they could. We owe them a LOT! But why did the terrorists hold them up with such ease? Obviously they were well prepared and knew what they were doing. But during the initial stages of this operation, the commandos were clueless as to what plan of action they were going to take! Their Chief had absolutely no sort of blueprint to deal with such situations at the ready. They had to hatch a plan from scratch, which is why they took so long to counter the terrorists. Why were they not prepared with some idea of dealing with this? They dropped NSG commandos on the rooftop of Nariman House from our army helicopters the day after all this happened. Why could they not be dropped earlier? Why wasn't a similar approach used for the Oberoi-Trident and the Taj? But i'm not the Chief so i cannot answer that. It was all a messy affair. Our commandos were brave and totally committed to what they were doing. But for large periods, you could feel that they were out of answers and out of plans. The terrorists had a clear gameplan. They were efficient in what they did. But the same cannot be said about our rescue operations. They were hasty, unorganized and took more than two days to complete. Why were we so unprepared? And this inspite of being informed of a possible attack. Forget the plan of action, had the commandos been brought earlier, they could have saved more lives and nipped the terrorists plans in the bud. But the terrorists had enough time to carry out their work. And when the commandos actually arrived, the terrorists had already settled inside their "forts" and there was nothing that the commandos could do immediately. Their approach thereafter was more "damage control" than "shock and awe" if you know what i mean. Why were they brought on to the scene so late? Especially when the city in concern is the city of Mumbai??

These attacks will forever go down in memory as one of the most terrifying attacks in the history of mankind. It was not an attack on the nation as much it was an attack on the innocent people, their very souls, their very spirit, their very resilience. It was an attack on the nation's sovereignty. An attack that will forever change the lives of the people of this great nation. It was an attack which exposed the soft underbelly of our defense forces. It was an attack that exposed our sheer inefficiency to deal with and fight terrorism. It was an attack that has made the citizens on this country no longer feel safe to venture out. It was an attack that could have killed you and me. It was an attack of such unimaginable proportions that i still cannot believe it all happened, even though almost a week and a half has passed by since they took place. It was an attack that killed more than 200 people, physically injured hundreds of others, and mentally scarred and crippled about 1 billion of this nation's citizens. We feel no longer safe to move out of our houses. When we go for work, schools, colleges etc in the morning, there is no bloody guarantee that we will return home alive in the evening. We're officially in the list of the 20 most dangerous places to visit in the world. We have a Government that took 13 years of court cases and beyond to finally convict those who were responsible for the serial blasts in 1993. We have a Government that has still not learned from their mistakes, and have still not taken a major step towards assuring safety to its citizens. We have an utterly inept and disgustingly inefficient bunch of morons who pose as politicians rule our country. I could write a thesis on these bunch of ignorant and good for nothing bureaucrats who are only efficient in giving long harangues to hordes of people and motivating the innocent people to vote for them, promising them the Sun and beyond! "Vote for me. I am from your religion". This is how our politicians, inspite of being a secular nation, treat us. Most of them are power hungry men who use these incidents to facilitate their profiles by giving false hopes to people.

They can fool us no more though. We're sick and tired of them. They have no idea that this nation is one and it will not fall apart. The solidarity and unity of the people of Mumbai was apparent during the recent protest marches that i have been to. The sheer anger mingled with contempt, disgust and abhorrence of the people is something which the Government would do wrong to take lightly. We are ANGRY. We want answers. We want the Government to give a detailed account of why these attacks could not be prevented or atleast contained efficiently. You would say that even worse attacks than these struck America in 2001, and there was nothing they could do about it after that. Oh please! This is not the first time we were victims of such atrocity. This is not the first time that terror struck Mumbai, or for that matter, India. Right from the serial blasts of 1993 to the train blasts of 2006. We have been attacked countless times. But have we learned from our mistakes? The answer is an overwhelming NO!! The United States has improved its security so much that no attacks on significance have happened in the US since 9/11. They have become more vigilant. And have vowed to ensure that attacks of such magnitude do not happen again. And they have stuck to their word haven't they?. What about us? Well, we make similar claims after each terror attack, terror attack after terror attack. But have we actually done anything of note to make sure these attacks do not happen again?? Have we kept our word?? Rhetoric question if you ask me!

Mr. Prime Minister, we want you to take serious measures. We want you and your Government to get down to business for once and deal with this with conviction and panache. We want you to get to the root of the matter and strike such a heavy blow on those responsible for these attacks, that no one can ever even DARE to attack this nation again. We must do something to strike terror in the hearts of those terrorists and their training camps. I don't care what it takes. We couldn't give a damn about what you do to bring justice! As long as justice is served. Put an end to the blame game! Mr.X blames Mr.Y. Mr.Y blames Mr.Z. And who suffers in the end?? Its us! Stop your ministers from pointing fingers in the wrong directions. Its high time the situation is dealt with properly. We want you to show your true leadership skills and we want you to use your power in the right manner to deal with his scenario. And we want our answers. We want you to give us an explanation as to why we couldn't stop these attacks from happening. We want you to select an efficient cabinet of ministers who CARE for this country. We want you to select individuals for posts not on the basis of their so called political experience, but their skills and talent. We want you to eradicate terrorism and corruption from our nation. You're the only one who has the unlimited power and authority to take such extreme measures. We look up to you because you chose to represent our country. What about the innocent lives that we lost on that fateful day? What about those civilians and gallant commandos who lost their lives on that Wednesday? Thursday?? Friday??? Who will answer their families : Me? My neighbour?? My maid? Her husband? His friends?????

To the Indian Government: Deal with this, or deal with our wrath. Don't underestimate the power of this nation's citizens. We chose you as our representatives. We chose you to protect us. We chose you to help run our country in peace and harmony. We expect you to do your job properly. We believe in you. Please don't hurt our belief!

Enough is enough!

It's time to act!

Jai Hind!!