The serial bombings in Ahmedabad and Bangalore demonstrate just how dangerous the terrorist threat to India’s major cities continues to be

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

The serial bombings in Ahmedabad and Bangalore demonstrate just how dangerous the terrorist threat to India’s major cities continues to be

An Editorial in the Hindu, New Delhi

28 July 2008

The serial bombings in Ahmedabad and Bangalore, which have taken a toll of over 50 lives and injured more than 150 people, form part of a sequence of attacks that have demonstrated just how dangerous the terrorist threat to India’s major cities continues to be. Even by the macabre standards we have been compelled to become accustomed to, the character of the violence is horrifying: after all, it takes a special kind of savagery to bomb a hospital. Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil has promised a ‘comprehensive plan’ to deal with the challenge — but did not spell out what action was contemplated nor why the Union Government has taken five years to decide it must have one. Sadly, pronouncements like this have followed each terrorist attack in recent years, as part of a ritualistic set of actions intended to reassure people that the government is working to make their lives more secure. Police deployment in public places is enhanced; random checks on traffic are stepped up; metal-detectors are installed in shopping complexes. But the truth is that not a single urban terrorist has been arrested in street checks; nor have searches at shopping complexes led to the detection of even one bomb. Measures like these cannot meet the terrorist threat. Cities, as any security professional knows, cannot be turned into fortresses.

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