26/11: How India is losing its fight against terror
There were 10 of them. Or so the reports say. But the terrorist captured during action thinks he came with 14 others. Right there begins the tragedy. We don’t really know how many of those bloodthirsty bastards were ravaging through the heart of India. Even most of those terrorists who were gunned down could have escaped if they really wanted. Posing as a guest of the hotel wouldn’t have been that difficult, considering the fact that the police were not exactly verifying the people coming out were really guests. But they didn’t want to escape. Though the headlines screamed of ‘hostage drama’, I think the terrorists were NOT interested in taking hostages. They just killed anybody who came across them. Had they been interested in creating a hostage crisis, the outcome might have been very different. Like what happened in Kandahar in 1999, we would have ended up releasing some other imprisoned ultra and he may go on to establish yet another terror outfit. India is known for its diversity; it even holds for terrorism. We have ULFA terrorists, naxalites and saffron terror outfits in addition to a multitude of Islamic terror outfits.

Now, on the 26th of November 2008, a group of terrorists reportedly came from the Pakistani city of Karachi via sea route to some seaside town in Gujarat. They abducted a boat from there, and proceeded towards Mumbai. They killed the 2 men in the boat just before reaching Mumbai. Then they boarded a dinghy, and landed in the Mumbai soil. What followed is the darkest episode in the history of India. India was defeated in a war, had its prime leaders executed more once, saw scandals in deals of coffins for dead soldiers, witnessed its citizens engaging in inhumane gory riots. But nevereverever this happened previously: a group of foreigners in Indian soil held the whole country under siege. We had NO information, NO preventive measures, NO security measures and NO crisis management mechanism. To add to this we had NO proper guns, NO trained personnel, NO ‘useful’ bullet-proof vests and helmets readily available. We had to wait till the National Security Guards arrival from New Delhi. The number of personnel of the Marine Commandos was very less and the army was unequipped to counter a situation like this. Where is our gigantic defence budget ranging to tens of thousands of crores of Rupees utilised?

We can’t complain about the crisis taking so long to end. The situation was delicate, and the commandos couldn’t take too much risk because even the number of terrorists and more importantly the number of people trapped in the besieged buildings were UNKNOWN. We have seen hostage crises in countries with ‘more elite’ forces including Israel dragging through days. We Indians were not used to the prolonged standoffs; probably the reason behind the media starting to wonder whether even the most elite forces of the country were INADEQUATE. To add to this the terrorists holed up in Mumbai’s landmark buildings were highly motivated, skilled, intelligent and informed. They knew the blueprint of the buildings, especially the Taj Mahal hotel by heart. My friend from Mumbai on the second day of the siege called them ‘tiger cubs’ and jokingly suggested that some of them should be roped in to train our forces. As time passed it ceased to be a joke. By every passing second they were winning. They did maximum damage to lives, buildings and to the confidence of and on India. When the situation proceeded, they seemed to be in full control. I painfully realised that we had lost this time, yet again.

I saw Shobhaa De, a well known columnist saying she wants to see ‘heads roll’. I thought, well, she has been seeing that literally in the past few days. And as I write, I am seeing heads starting to roll, starting with the home minister Shivraj Patil. Patil was heavily criticized every time India came under attack from terrorists, but this time his party decided enough is enough. Everybody was angry against politicians. It’s always easy to blame. Changing heads of state is not a solution. We don’t want new governments doing the same old things. We want to strengthen our internal security. Next time some motherfucker decides to have a go in India, we need a response team readily available. We can’t expect the Intelligence to bring in a fully compiled list of future terrorist strikes. Even the world’s biggest and most sophisticated spy agency, the CIA failed to collect proper info about the 9/11. Intelligence might give leads, and we should not neglect them. Even now, there are reports that the IB had warned the government regarding terrorism through sea route. Even if the IB fails to get info, we should be ready for the worst, all time. We need SWAT like elite forces in all state police departments. And we need them ready.

Soon enough the gore will be washed away, there will be merry again. But we should not forget. In 60 hours, 195 people were massacred, including 42 security personnel. This year over 2000 people were killed in terrorist violence all over the country. We shall never forget. We shall not lose another time.