July 14: Rahul Gandhi today spoke of the difficulty in preventing "every single terrorist" attack, ruffling some feathers but also prompting suggestions that "somebody has to say this" instead of making implausible promises in the post-9/11 world.
"It is difficult to stop every single terrorist attack. It is difficult to stop them all the time. This is something we are fighting and will defeat," the Congress MP said in Bhubaneswar today, a day after the triple blast in Mumbai killed 17 people and wounded 113.
Union home minister P. Chidambaram was less explicit but he also appeared to be appealing to the people to keep the ground realities in mind. "We live in the most troubled neighbourhood in the world," Chidambaram said in Mumbai, pointing to nearby Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"I would like to point out that every city in India is vulnerable. Every city in the world is vulnerable. You take 2011 alone. There have been 16 major terror attacks in January, 21 in February, 45 in March, 21 in April, 28 in May all over the world. Every city is vulnerable…. Every part of India is vulnerable," Chidambaram said.
The message was clear: governments may never be able to guarantee a terror-free nation in a region plagued by extremism.
Rahul was asked about the US, which has seen no big terror strike on its soil since the 9/11 attacks. "The US is involved in Afghanistan and Iraq where attacks on them are taking place every day. The war has moved there," he said.
The Congress MP's statements drew howls of protest from the BJP and the Shiv Sena, which termed them insensitive and ill-timed.
But Maloy Krishna Dhar, a former Intelligence Bureau joint director, said: "Somebody has to say this whether the home minister says it or Rahul Gandhi. It isn't correct to blame intelligence agencies all the time. It isn't possible to prevent all attacks."
Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi, said that while the "remark itself is not so much of a problem", questions should be asked if enough was being done to prevent such attacks. "Have we done enough, whatever that needed to be done to prevent all attacks? Is it that attacks that were not preventable earlier can now be prevented? Is it that all the incidents have been prevented and only this one got through?" he asked.
Rahul had said earlier: "In terms of intelligence, ideas and the way we think about it, we have improved by leaps and bounds."
The response to yesterday's explosions suggested the police had become more nimble-footed, arriving on the scene of the blasts within minutes. "Within one hour of this tragedy, all the injured persons were sent to various hospitals," the Prime Minister said today.
But their training, forensic and investigative capabilities remain horribly deficient, leaving them powerless to uncover terror plots before they are carried out, Sahni said.
The law enforcement system was so badly degraded that the changes had done little to increase safety. Sahni called the National Investigation Agency "a tiny little organisation" that is badly under-resourced. "It is not the FBI."
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who flew to Mumbai to meet the victims, said the perpetrators must be "relentlessly pursued". "They must be brought to justice quickly. I assure the people that the government will do everything in its power to prevent such attacks in the future."
But many remained frustrated. "Why is Mumbai being attacked again?" asked Uttam Jain, who works in the blast-hit Zaveri Bazaar. "I am disgusted with politicians who promise security but do nothing after the media cameras are gone."
"We thought we were safe," said Anita Ramaswami, a 33-year-old accountant. "But things still are the same."
The sheer number of targets in the country of 1.2 billion makes it nearly impossible to protect, officials said. Every day, around 3.75 million commuters on more than 1,600 trains pass through the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, where 52 people were gunned down in the 26/11 attacks.
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