NOTES FROM A WAR ZONE...

It’s been well over 50 hours & the encounter like a recurrent nightmare rages on.The status at “Nariman House “& the “Oberoi Trident” have been classified as “OVER” while sporadic gunfire continues at the Taj.
There’s a general sense of anger amongst Indians across the country and citizens are lashing out at certain groups & nationality. This kind of divisive exchange could lead to a very volatile & dangerous situation. We have to as a nation understand & accept that Terrorism has no race, religion or nationality! Albeit it’s natural to identify a target wherein we can channel in our angst, we have to have learnt something from the past. Instead of giving our politicians free reign to resort to their age old tactics of mud-slinging & blaming Pakistan for our shortcomings as a government, we have to hold them accountable!
They are our elected representatives & it’s their duty to safeguard our nation. They are responsible & accountable. Time & time again, Mumbai has borne the brunt of terrorist attacks & recovered through resilience, with dignity. This has been misread as a sign of weakness…
Not long ago, Raj Thackeray’s MNS [which is nothing short of a terrorist outfit] had the city under siege over divisive propaganda. We didn’t stand for it then & we’re not going to stand for it now. Incidentally, if Mr. Thackeray or his MNS supporters are reading this, 200 NSG, Marine Commandos & the Army had to come to the rescue of “aamchi Mumbai” and the “Marathi manoos”!!! Ironic! Where was the MNS, Raj???
In the wake of 26/11, we’ve been painfully made aware of the fact that we as a nation are woefully unprepared for terrorist attacks of this type. This is the time to form a united front, not with political connotations but in the larger sense. The nation as a whole has to stand up & demand a zero tolerance policy towards terrorism.
A secular, inclusive India with modern infrastructure to fight terror is the need of the hour. Our brave officers have more often lost their lives in the line of fire due to poor infrastructure & lack of Crisis Management skills.
Why did we have to wait for 6 hrs before the NSG could get to the encounter points? Why weren’t our cops/ATS better equipped or trained to handle a situation such as this? Why was the Fire Brigade incapable of extinguishing the incessant fires at the Taj? There are a lot of questions & a lot of people our government is answerable to. We’re not going anywhere…we don’t want to put on a brave front, exude the spirit of Mumbai and resume normalcy. Over several attacks, we’ve demonstrated to the world that we’re a forgiving nation of Gandhian principles. We may have been misconstrued to be thought as incapable of retaliation. Our leaders better be ready to answer these questions, explain their actions & apologize for the general callousness with which the situation was handled or be ready to hand in their resignations.
It would be a grave injustice to the brave soldiers who sacrificed their lives for us, the victims of this debacle & us as a nation, if we let this pass. Politicians are gearing up to orate politically correct speeches written by their aides on what should have been and what is but we don’t seem to be getting any better at pre-empting attacks or punishing those responsible.

Valiant officers are lost to frontal assaults and political posturing over terror follows. But stifled as it were in between the chaos of death, fear and blame is the voice of the masses.
The time has come India, to stand united, as a nation. No more lame excuses from our leaders, no more empty promises…we demand action. As the Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi stated, lets ‘turn the tide from confrontation to cooperation’.
This is a defining moment in the history of modern India…we will not be threatened, terrorized or victimized.