Let us anounce “war against terrorism”

Serial blasts are attacks on democratic structure. And I feel the solution lies in our strong democracy itself. None of such malicious activity is possible without the support or involvement of general public directly or indirectly. Terrorist are in our society itself. They are using all the government infrastructure for their plans. They are traveling in same buses or trains. They are using same banking system to transfer money from one hand to another as we do. And somehow they are successful in using us also.

The labors transporting materials from one place to another do not know what is inside the box. They are doing it for their daily living. The person at check post clears all the materials for the want of very small money. Knowingly or unknowingly he is also involve and responsible. The police can not check all the luggage arriving in a city. But they can randomly check. They can use information technology to identify a suspect. I do not know how effectively they are doing their jobs.

These terrorist get shelter in our society. Knowingly or unknowingly they are using us. They could be in my very neighborhood. They are buying a pressure cooker or a bicycle or a bike from the same places where we also buy. Somewhere somehow they must be leaving a scope for a suspicion. At that time tell me honestly how many of will take pain to inform police? I am sure few of us will be daring enough to do. I am using word dare as I feel police has lost its credibility. Many of us will agree that helping police is inviting them to harass yourself.

Another issue is the insensitivity we have developed towards our society and so nation. Very recently a lady got accident on the roads of Mumbai and no one come to her rescue as it is only the responsibility of police. This loss of sensitivity is making us selfish. Most of us think that all the calamities are just a news as long as it not happening with me. Directly or indirectly these attitudes are also helping enemies of democracy.

Before designing a comprehensive solution to the problem of terrorism. We must fill all these gaps already existing in our society.

Serial Blasts. What is the value human life in India?

It happens only in developing countries like India where one after another terrorist attacks keeps government busy in counting causalities. Bangalore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Delhi, I do’t know how many more to come. The worst part is inactivity of government to change anything at ground level. Our politicians are expert in blame game. State vs. Center. Or our politicians are even more busy in solving bigger issues than terrorism like Hindi vs. Marathi.

What would have been the sequence of actions if it was happened in developed countries like USA? We have one example in recent history. A 9/11 and then government responds with serial attacks on Afghanistan. At least government there understand value of human life (of course of their own country only) and assures its citizens that they will do anything to secure them. What are we doing? Why our government do nothing attacks after attacks? Is human life value in India is nothing?

This is basically a failure of system. And we all are responsible for that. It can be proved very easily. Let me ask few questions.

Do you think it’s a result of only religious fundamentalism? If yes, think again. Are all the people involved in transportation of RDX, weapons or any other explosives belong to one religion? Are the people clearing the tonnages at various check post doing their job honestly? Are the people supporting these fundamentalist during their stay, travel or anything a society can do with a stranger, not Indians?

As per as government policies are concerned, do we have any comprehensive database on identities of citizen of India? How the government tackles corruption in various government departments? Even in anti corruption department? Why government do not have a common and comprehensive policy on terrorism?

There are infinite number of such burning question. And if we feel that we carry some value of our life, we must seek the answers to these questions.

Memories of July 26, 2005

This is a copy of letter I wrote to shweta just after a 26/7
There are lot of things to share with you. Every thing occurred to me in last 10 days. When I departed from Lucknow by train I had few things troubling into my mind. ‘Am I doing right by leaving you behind for wait wait and wait?’ I questioned my decision of joining Spjimr ‘n’ number of times the whole night(25th).Could not find any positive answer. Before getting into sleep I decided to discuss the same with you next morning.

The mornings always come late to me. I woke up around 8.30. And first thing I tried was to listen your voice. The only medium available was my mobile phone with no network and for instance no battery (You know). What other option I had? I adhered to my wrongly planed decision and studied for a while for foundation test which was going to be held on 27th. I had fair deal of study, sleep..study, sleep and study and sleep. I do not know how much I studied and how much I slept. The study was comfortable. It was comfortable perhaps because of the fact that I was doing that for you. And It was comfortable till 5.30 pm when I met Madhur.

Madhur was traveling in same coach and was also going to Join Spjimr’s one year program for which I was there. He identified me by the study material I was reading through out the day. He Introduced himself and another fellow Arvind who was also traveling for the same. Madhur told me that train is going for indefinite hault at Igatpuri station (which is around 125 km before Mumbai) because of heavy flood in Mumbai.It shocked me. And suddenly an uncertainty with some fear appeared in my mind about reaching the institute in time. When train stoped at Igatpuri we tried to find out some information at station about the route. But no Information was available.

The train was at hault there for around 2 hrs when it started to move. But it moved only 20 Kms and stoped at ‘Khari’ for permanent hault.The name of the station was ‘Khari’ was only a coincidence. “AUR TRAIN ‘KHARI’ PAR KHARI HI RAH GAYI”. We spend whole night in small parts of minutes and hours. Waiting for green signal. We could not do anything because of night, heavy luggage and indifferent station. We got another fellow traveler’s accompany named Ankit who was also moving to Andheri to join some institute.

Next day morning we confirmed that the train is not going to move any further in next 4 to 5 hours at stationmaster’s office. The first thing I did was ‘a call to home’. Next we decided at took one hired jeep to move by road to Mumbai.But the city was in different mood to welcome us. We held up at place called Bhiwandi which was around 50 kms away from our destination. It was only 50 km but we are not certain about how and when are we going to reach our destinations. We put up in a resort cum Water Park there. Which was a bit costly but we did not have any other option.

We waited for another day and next morning things were reported normal by most of the TV channels. We moved to ‘Kalyan’ to Madhur’s uncle. There we had lunch. I have already told you about the horrible rumor of “ Bandha toot gaya”. By the evening we were in our temporary Hostels.