Every Indian knows what he/she was doing when they first heard the news break-out on national TV.
On the morning of 27/11/2008 i returned home from my University office in Belgaum after taking my provisional degree certificate and was immediately greeted on the door by a worried look on Guddy's face. I could see she was really upset and in the most serious tone, i've ever heard from her, she simply told me "Bhaiya, Mumbai mein terrorist attack re!!!!". For a moment i didnt believe her and then heard the the unmistakable voice of Deepak Chaurasia, loud and clear, emanating from my TV set in the living room, covering the attacks for Aaj Tak.
My reaction was shock, anger, helplessness, pity and disgust, mixed in one complex emotion. All these emotions mixed to form a slow moving, high viscosity fluid in my head which kept me from immediately going to my TV to 'check it out'. Rather i simply walked straight to the bathroom to freshen up after my 2 day trip to belgaum. Needless to say, later i spent the next three days shifting channels from Aaj Tak to NDTV to BBC and CNN.
Meanwhile, mom was worried a touch more than us, as one of my mausi lives in Mumbai and my mama, who is in NSG, was scheduled to be in Mumbai on 30th, if the situation could not be brought under control by then. Thankfully, it was!!!! Dad, who was at the National hockey camp in New Delhi, also got repeated safety alerts from mom.
After Kasab was caught and and the whole incident was done, there were many things which were screaming to be brought to public attention.
1) Failure of Indian Intelligence: Indian intelligence failed on may fronts here, again. Starting from failing to predict the attacks, to failure in cooperation with foreign Intelligence. Our intelligence has failed us time and again, be it the parliament attacks, Numerous bomb blasts in Mumbai, Bangalore, Jaipur.... Its easy to loose track of these over time!!!! Just a look at MOSSAD and CIA, and one can understand how intelligence services should be!!!!Apart from Munich '72 massacre, there have been no attacks on Israelis, even though Israel is THE MOST hated country in the world. And of course, how many terrorist strikes have occurred in the US after 9/11. One can debate about US being geographically far from such 'hostile centres', but Israel is surrounded by countries which want to eradicate it from the face of this earth and don't mind saying so in public.
2) Mindless Indian media: Though it was very informative for us, as viewers, to keep ourself updated in real time, but media should've kept restraints on the material that they were airing, because they apparently forgot, they are after all airing it on national television. These channels also air in Pakistan right to the dug outs where the handlers were seated and remote controlling the operation. Here Ministry of Information and Broadcast should've censored the material first before it was being aired or simply the police should've cordoned off a much larger area, which also would've kept the news hungry reporters out off harms way!!!
and yes, after the whole incident, one particular News channel aired an 'exclusive' 1 hour program on the shaheed 'pigeons' outside Taj hotels...yes thats right.... 'pigeons', as in birds!!! I almost ripped my TV socket from the wall!!!!
3) Weapons used by Mumbai Police: Probably, this should've come first. Our cops were using weapons like .303 Lee Enfield (Older than World War I) and 7.62 1A Self Loading Rifles (As old as .303) against AK-47s, AK-56s and Grenades. And to add to their woes, they used plastic helmets and the bulletproof jackets which were all but 'bulletproof'. These things resulted in the death of some of the best cops in our country!!!! and the sad part is that these things are making some 'skeptics' believe that these attacks were staged!!! :x ..."What the FUCK!!!!"
4) Work of NSG: Indian commandos are considered to be among the elite in the world and certainly the best in Asia and they proved it during the attacks. Some people keep groaning about the fact that NSG came-in 10 hours after the attacks began, and that their operation was painstakingly slow. These 'people' aren't aware of the facts. NSG was alerted at midnight, in under 2 and a half hours of the attacks and inside another hour they were in palam airport where they reached by ....TRUCKS.... yes, trucks, because the helicopters they possess at manesar, don't have night flying capabilities (and also their request for as fixed-wing aircraft has been held-up by the Home Ministry). The fiasco doesn't end here. They had to wait for another hour at the airport for the plane, which was called from Chandigarh, to take them to the 'war zone'. All in all, almost 3 precious hours were lost. According to NSG DG Jyoti Krishan Dutt, “By the time we reached (Mumbai), most (hostages) were dead."
Their operation took 59 long hours. Why so? because there just weren't 10 terrorists to kill.... there also were 100s of lives to be saved. Analyzing the overall stats of the attacks, we officially lost 183 people, but around 700-800 people were rescued, in which 600+ were from Taj, Oberoi and Nariman House. This shows the excellent work done by the Black Cats.
5) Attitude of Pakistan Govt.: The flip-flops done by our neighbors were classic during this period and made me laugh on numerous occasions, both at their level of stupidity and their belief that someone actually buys that shit. Initially, they flatly denied any pakistani involvement in the attacks. Then as and when Kasab shared information with the police about his home in faridkot, that village was suddenly cordoned off, surrounded by the army and entry of any media person was prohibited. But apparently someone did manage to sneak in and get a shot of his home and an interview with his neighbors. They then wanted India to share evidence with them regarding any pakistani involvement, and when they received a shit load of it, which included VoIP IDs of the pakistani handlers, they rejected it saying it wasn't conclusive enough and wanted some 'real evidence'. "You are laughing too right??? [:D]" Then, they pretend to house arrest a few members of Jamaat ud-Dawa, under US and UN pressure, (No surprises as to why. MONEY!!! AID!!! CHANDA!!! BHEEK!!!) but those guys were found to roaming freely after a few days. "I could probably write a lot more on this topic, but it would probably bore a few readers away, if i haven't done so already!!!! and which i fear i have!! [:(]"
On the morning of 29th when the 9th terrorist was killed and Kasab, caught, I heaved a sigh of relief and thanked the security forces for saving countless lives, esp Assistant sub-inspector Tukaram Omble (for the people who don't know who this great man is, please Google his name). I, initially, was very happy that he was receiving a fair trial, as thats the sign of a true democracy, but gradually this trial is becoming a farce and has all the traits of an Ekta Kapoor 'Potboiler'!!!!
It all started with Advocate Anjali Waghmare (the defense lawyer) being publicly fired on the grounds of 'professional misconduct', in April, as she did not inform the court that she is also representing one of the victims of the attacks file for compensation.
The appointment of Abbas Kazmi as the defense lawyer against the public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam also caused a flutter as these two were also involved in other high profile cases like '93 Mumbai blasts and Gulshan Kumar murder case. Then, out of the blue came Kasab's guilty plea. But Nikam sensing a ploy to have the trial ended early without Kasab facing all charges, pleaded the judge not to accept the plea until he had rested his case. Yet another twist came when Abbas Kazmi was also fired from the case, late last month, with 'Non Co-operation' being the reason cited this time by Special judge Tahliyani. I feel, he is more relieved to be out of this case, as he kept complaining about how tough it was getting for him and he was getting peanuts as salary for this and could not take up any new cases.
And now, to add to the drama, Kasab again back-tracked on his statement and plead not-guilty for all the charges against him and claims he came to Mumbai as a visitor and was promptly arrested by the police. He also claimed that the person who was caught on camera during the attacks, looked a lot like him. "Yeah, u moron, Mumbai police knew what the attackers would look like, 5 days before the attack!!!!!"
Of course in the middle we kept hearing Kasab wanting to be treated like everyone else and wants good food, daily newspapers, permission to roam about freely in jail. He talks marathi, says he fears for his life in the prison and he even has the cheek to carry a sample bowl of rice to court as an 'evidence' of food being given to him being laced with drugs (Obviously, it was tested and was found to be just that, a bowl of rice).
Reading about these things in the papers, daily, tend to take the shine, seriousness and importance off the case. It makes one feel that our judicial system is being mocked and which in-turn feels like a mockery of us as Indians.
Well, I do not promise to keep this post updated on a weekly or even monthly basis, but i will continue with it as when i find time and an urge to empty my brain off sensible things to concentrate on more insignificant things in life!!!!
