Mumbai Blasts: Lateral thinking

“Its time we stop being a secular nation!” my friend opined as we were sipping on some lemon sherbet. “There are far too many Islamist nations out there, so it’s not like they won’t find a home. Just drive these bastards out”

I was a bit shocked at his statement. Not knowing whether this was his attempt at black humour or if he actually believed in the segregation, I told him that a substantial portion of the civilians killed were in fact Muslims (You can check the entire list here), Indians.

My friend’s statement is one of the million opinions that the people of the nation have expressed after the Mumbai blasts which have, and it’s rather mildly put, devastated the nation.

“We must fight back” is the natural response to these attacks, but how? Will catching hold of these terrorists and then executing them on camera work? Probably this way tell the whole world that we will not take to terrorism lightly and can be brutal when the need arises. Or maybe this way give the terrorism the much needed media attention that they have been wanting and establish them as martyrs on the other side of our border.

Collaborating with Pakistan on combating terrorism is another line of thought. As this article points out:

If Pakistan truly wishes to turn back the tide of fundamentalism in its country, and stop exporting violence overseas, then it must have proper support and assistance from India.

Somehow it seems a little late for this. It’s been a while & they don’t really seem to be doing anything about it, as more and more cities are being attacked by the terrorist groups. These groups I am sure must have also appointed a creative lead for providing them with innovative names for their outfit (Deccan, seriously?).

I am also deeply worried by the level of infiltration that might exist in our organisations. It’s probably something that has not received enough media attention but I do believe that a lot of people on the inside are involved. Fake IDS, plans of buildings, secret information, access codes. I doubt if the terrorist intelligence are that good to do it all on their own. Mumbai Underground might have had a role to play too.

Other news items include the whole nation calling Raj Thackeray a eunuch who excretes from his mouth and that pretty much sums up his existence. The MNS has done nothing to help the situation in Mumbai and watched with their heads bowed as their city got molested in front of their eyes for three days. 

As a parting note: We should have been smarter. We should have picked up the hints right away. And where were the hints? In this article which no one bothered to take seriously.

Pakistan is as safe a country as India and we had even promised state level security for the Australians and other teams. This incident only shows the double standards of Australian cricket, 

-Shafqat Naghmi, chief operating officer of the PCB told fumed. 

Clearly unmistakable. :)