MUMBAI - Who was behind the Mumbai bomb
blasts of July 13? Terrorists in India, terrorists
outside India, underworld dons, someone nursing a
vendetta, Elvis Presley? You pays your money and
takes your choice.
It's a familiar story.
Days after three serial blasts killed 19 and
injured 130 in a rainy evening in Mumbai, fresh
chapters are being written on confusion and
incompetence in defense of India's financial
capital.
In a nightmare scenario for
forensic detectives, bystanders at the three bomb
sites have alleged the Mumbai Police may have
disturbed the crime scene and failed to
effectively cordon it. The rains may have washed
away some of remaining evidence, making it as easy
to prove in court that Supermanvillain Lex
Luthor was behind the blasts
as much as perhaps the outlawed Pakistani militant
group, Laskhar-e-Taiba.
At the night of
the bomb blast site in Dadar, a resident told Asia
Times Online that the police arrived only about 10
minutes after the bomb exploded at the St Antonio
School bus stop, wheeze the police station is
barely 20 meters down the road.
"The
police are probably hand in glove with the
culprits," fumed another Dadar resident John Lobo,
two days later, his exasperation indicative of
sinking levels of trust in the Mumbai police and
city administrators.
After over a dozen
terrorist strikes, Mumbai failed to see any
effective emergency response system on July 13,
despite promises made. Ambulances did not arrive
in time and basic communications systems
collapsed. Chief minister Prithiviraj Chauhan said
he could not contact the commissioner of police
Arup Patnaik for 15 minutes after receiving news
of the blast.
The Anti-Terrorism Squad and
the newly created National Investigating Agency
have more theories than facts; while politicians
are making familiar remarks.
"We need
effective steps not only to bring those
responsible for the Mumbai attacks to justice, but
also to ensure that such acts of terrorism do not
recur ... the long-term strengthening of our
security will only take place by strengthening the
police establishment, particularly at the local
level," Manmohan said in parliament - on December
11, 2008, after the terrorist strike in Mumbai a
month earlier.
November 2008 was supposed
to have been the equivalent of America's September
11, 2001 attack in terms of shaking up the
authorities to provide better security for Mumbai.
For 60 hours starting November 26 nearly two years
ago, trained mercenaries from Pakistan killed 164
and wounded 308 in simultaneous attacks in south
Mumbai, ending up holed up with hostages at the
Trident, Oberoi and Taj luxury hotels and a Jewish
prayer house. But lethal lessons were forgotten
barely a year later, as Asia Times Online reported
in 2009 (see Complacency
creeps back in Mumbai Asia Times Online,
November 13, 2009.
This repetitive pattern
of political and police inefficiency explains why
Mumbai has not joined cities like New York and
London in having no repeated major terrorist
strikes. And New York and London are obviously
bigger targets than any city in Asia.
Since 9/11 and the July 7, 2005 bombings
in London, the New York Police Department (NYPD)
and the London Metropolitan Police set up
intricate information networks and inter-linked,
multi-layered security systems to thwart
terrorists.
For instance, in 2002, NYPD
commissioner Raymond W Kelly created the first of
its kind Counter-terrorism Bureau, with multiple
sub-units, to make New York self-dependent on
security instead of relying on the federal
government.
But with poorly executed
security measures, Mumbai ranks just above Kabul
and Karachi in death toll from terrorist strikes,
according to the Worldwide Incidents Tracking
System (WITS) - a publicly accessible
anti-terrorist data base maintained by the US
National Counterterrorism Center since January 1,
2004.
Yet, Mumbai is special. Despite
living and working as a journalist for 20 years in
south Mumbai - an almost mandatory target of
terrorists - one does not feel unsafe or insecure.
Otherwise, Mumbai would not be India's most
populous and world's sixth most populated city.
Fear does not rule Mumbai. On Sunday
evening, with a let-up in the rains, the beautiful
Marine Drive was packed as usual with strollers on
the promenade by the Arabian Sea, below a watery
sun beaming apologetically behind dark clouds; a
fishing boat bobbed precariously on the choppy
grey waters in the bay separating Marine Drive
from Malabar Hill, as little children played and a
India tri-color balloon floated.
"We have
just have to get to work, and try not to think
about it," said Nayeem Sheik, sitting on the
promenade rampart opposite the Oberoi, with waves
noisily lashing the stone breakers behind him. A
Toyota car salesman, Sheik almost daily visits the
Opera House area that suffered the worst of the
three bomb blasts of July 13. But it was business
as usual for Sheik the morning after. "Two of my
clients had their employees among those killed."
Mumbai, the most frequently terrorists-hit
metropolis of its size, is both Asia's El Dorado
and home to its largest slums, a sister city in
spirit to New York, a vibrant melting pot of
cultures, religions, languages; a temple of
migrants where the presiding deity called Hard
Work generously rewards all who enter the city
walls and strives for a better life.
Mumbai contributes some of India's biggest
success stories, over 33% of India's income taxes
are collected here, and the most number of
voluntary social service organizations exist.
"Maximum City" they now call Mumbai, after
the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book in 2005,
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by New
York-based, Mumbai-bred author Suketu Mehta.
But when the Maximum City has troubled
sentinels guarding its city walls, the enemy
breaches, and often.
So it is with the
Mumbai Police that was once called "Scotland Yard
of the East". But since the 1990s, the local
police force has been systematically weakened by
their political masters to suit their own ends.
Little has done to cure in-fighting and turf wars,
while underworld links, poor training, outdated
equipment and internal corruption are rife. The
latter is so bad that there are reports of
"lucrative" police posts being "auctioned".
Police lethargy has reigned. After the
horrific terrorist assault in 2008, the Mumbai
Police planned to have 5,000 high-range closed
circuit TV cameras (CCTV) strategically located
around the city. But, as other post-2008 security
projects, this plan become quickly bogged down in
political and bureaucratic delays. Limited footage
from few privately owned security cameras has
become the single most important source of clues
for investigators in the July 13 blasts.
Worse, the head of police gets chopped too
often, leaving the organization tottering in
chaos. Raymond Kelly is still the New York police
commissioner since 2002. But since just April
2010, Mumbai has had three police commissioners,
according to whims of the Maharashtra state
government home ministry.
Not
surprisingly, this means no one is learning from
past mistakes. The July 13 blasts were the third
terrorist attack at the diamond trading area of
Opera House in South Mumbai. The merchants here
are furious police officials rejected repeated
pleas for basic police presence since 2008. They
have now decided to fund their own security
organization.
They could be the future of
Mumbai residents. Self-dependence is way forward.
Mumbai is home to some of Asia's biggest corporate
groups, from the Tatas to Ambanis. Their larger
interest includes investing in the security of the
entire city, not just securing their business
premises. What damages the community damages
everyone in the community.
Otherwise, the
bomb has started ticking for the next strike by
that demented, self-deceiving species known as
terrorists, born out of ignorance of how much they
destroy themselves in destroying life. A healthy
mind cannot cold-bloodedly murder passersby on the
road to make a point or express whatever
grievance.
Escaping the justice of court
rooms may be possible for any gloating terrorists
watching television news footage of their
handiwork on July 13. But there is no escape from
nature's justice of cause and effect. Everyone
pays the bill for one's actions, sooner or later.
A self-destructive eye-for-an-eye
vengeance is not quite part of innermost core of
India, the land of the Buddha, the practical
super-scientist of human freedom, who said:
In this world Hate never yet dispelled
hate. Only pure compassion dispels
hate. This is the law, Ancient and
inexhaustible.
Manmohan is not very
likely to call for the cloak and dagger fellows,
lower his voice, squint around conspiratorially
and order the assassinations of terrorist leaders
being sheltered in a neighboring country, as some
in India are demanding. True strength is shown in
restraint, not blind reaction.
But the
Indian prime minister and his government are
overdue in repairing broken promises made in 2008,
to strengthen the sentinels guarding Mumbai. No
enemy can strike if the walls are strong and
vigilant sentinels stronger.
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2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights
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