The Terror Pattern

It is clear that the UPA government has yet to wake up to criminal terrorism, whose manifestations are varied and well in sight. Terrorists have no ideology; if anything, it is the principle to kill and maim the maximum number of innocents, and thus instil fear in the mind of the defenceless. The principle also entails inflicting maximum damage on infrastructure. This is what terrorists sought to achieve by targeting Bangalore and Ahmedabad last week. The serial blasts of Bangalore were an attempt to bleed the IT capital of India, to hit India’s best, to cripple Happening India. It is a new terror pattern then, to undo what India has achieved and will achieve, to unsettle, thus, the country’s economy. And the UPA government has remained a mere spectator of death and destruction. Here is an elected government that has chosen not to protect the people of the country, because the choice to protect the people will require it to counter terror without dots and commas which it is not prepared to embark upon because then it will also mean a sacrifice of its most cherished vote bank. Why, in countering jehad — be it of any brand, SIMI or LeT or HuJI — the government is concerned more about ‘Muslim sensitivities’ than about the need to absolutely dismantle the jehad factory. This, despite the fact that the sensible Muslims of the country have made it categorical that they have nothing to do with jehadi terrorism which is criminal in every way.The Union Home Ministry must be blamed. Home Minister Shivraj Patil has proved himself to be one of the weakest home ministers that the country has had. He does not have the determination to do what he has been assigned with — to put in place an excellent and infallible police-intelligence framework, to empower the police to the hilt so that they are capable of facing and defeating terror sophistication, to also encourage the police to boost their sagging morale. These are not in the agenda of Mr Patil. His disinclination to have the right take on terrorism has the country paying an enormous cost. Therefore, one feels it is high time he was replaced by someone more determined to prove the worth of the country’s Home Ministry — if the Prime Minister is thinking of letting Mr Patil continue because the term of the government will come to an end after a few months, he is putting the country to a greater risk. A responsible government — that is, if the UPA government is responsible — cannot afford to do that when the country is being attacked on a routine basis. It is also high time the Prime Minister realized that the terrorists are giving the impression that there is no government in India worth the name and that the government cannot protect the people. The Prime Minister must realize that he is presiding over a government that is increasingly looking like a loser in the war against terrorism. The question is: Is it so difficult to deprive the terrorists of their scope to operate and launch strikes anywhere? Yes, it is difficult if there is no will to tackle terror. And this government has no such will. source: sentinel assam