Mumbai Blasts 7/11

Everyone has by now heard and read about the merciless act of terror committed by cowards in Mumbai on the 11th of July 2006. The series of 7 high intensity bomb blasts most of which were in the local trains in Mumbai killed nearly 200 people and left more than 700 Mumbaikars injured. As anyone who has visited Mumbai would know that the train network is the heartline of the city and literally millions of middle class people travel to and from work using this mode of transport.

These killings were a rude shock to many of the cosmopolitan Mumbaikars. This shock will leave an indelible mark with many of us. At the same time though these blast give us a stern reminder that India has been in a state of emergency right since 1979. The events of 7/11 in Mumbai are acts that happen on a routine basis in our state of Jammu and Kashmir. People in J&K have been held hostage to these terrorists for the past 2.5 decades while the rest of the country has continued on with its own agenda turning a blind eye to our citizens and soldiers in J&K. This callous attitude has strengthened the network of these terrorists not just within the state but throughout the country. They have probably managed to form an invisible thread within out country with strong support of the governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh which provide economic, moral and territorial support for their neferious training camps and madrassas.

I just read an article in the Hindustan Times by the renowned Barkha Dutt (NDTV). She as a journalist has been a strong supporter of the peace process and these blasts have shown her the grim reality of terror first hand. As it has for many of us. Things that have been only seen in snippets of Israeli telivision footage and gory pictures are now things that we can relate with having experienced it first hand. According to her article the shock was so strong for her that she doubts the success of the peace process and the need for us to waste our valuable resources trying this route while the other party is not ready to move a muscle in return. Well Barkha welcome to the real world. Just to put in in figures J&K has seen the loss of >50,000 Indians over the past 2 decades. That is 250 times the people that died in Mumbai!!! Now imagine the casualties in lives, injuries and their families.

It is time that India strikes back. India has to prove to the world and more importantly to her citizens that she is ready to defend herself and that she values the lives of her citizens. Unlike int the past, where Indian soldiers of the flag where tortured and their mutilated bodies were strung on bamboo sticks like some hunter's game by Bangladeshi troops and yet India did not strike back. That event still gets my blood boiling with anger. The largest democracy in the world needs to value the life of each and every of its citizens and just as the United States had the right and the determination to defend its country by waging wars overseas we too need to weed out these fundamentalists at their roots. If it is by crossing international borders then so be it... all things considered we are at war since 1979 its time we seize the fort and hoist the flag or else generations will keep paying the price for our cowardice.

Technorati Tag: Mumbai, Bombay, Blasts, 7/11, Jammu, Kashmir, BarkhaDutt, India