Any assessment on the anniversary of the terror attacks in Mumbai on November 26, 2008 must consider three points — the lessons learnt, the diplomatic management and justice. Linked with these three is the crucial issue of a sense of closure for the families and friends of the victims and for society as a whole. Only then will 26/11 be more than just another date that is marked once a year with the usual platitudes and hollow promises.
Three years on, Mumbai is a much more visibly policed city. Cops can now be found standing purposefully at street corners and metal detectors are ubiquitous. Officials have declared that 5,000 close circuit cameras are going to be installed at crucial points so that all the important parts of the city can be monitored; a delegation of babus went to London to learn how to deploy them effectively. The government says weapons have been bought, boats procured and a quick response team is being set up to quickly reach the spot of any future terror attack. All this is meant to assure the citizens that the cops are doing their job.
But the moot question is, are we more secure? Two other blasts have taken place since 26/11 — the first in Pune in February 2010 and another in Mumbai this July.
In both cases, the perpetrators have not been caught. The July attack was in crowded Zaveri Bazaar, which had been the target twice before; each time there were pious declarations that security would be heightened.
Security is not merely about weaponry alone and while a commando unit in the vicinity is reassuring, it can only be useful in another 26/11 type of attack, which went on for almost three days. The sudden bomb blast, which can have devastating effects, has to be tackled on two fronts — prevention and quick detection. For the first, the law and order system needs high quality intelligence, which can come only with the ground links built up over years. Here the Mumbai police is handicapped, because its beat policing, community relations and intelligence gathering have eroded steadily over the years.
Nor are the various agencies tasked with investigations up to the mark. The Anti-Terrorism Squad has been found wanting, most recently in the Malegaon blast case where even after the arrest of the alleged perpetrators, it clung on the fiction that the original seven men it had caught were somehow connected to the incident. Those men languished in jail for five years before they were finally released on bail.
The Mumbaikar has willingly submitted to the metal detectors and the nakabandis at peak traffic hours, but the sense remains that not only can terrorists strike at will but also that little will be done to find and arrest them.
On the diplomatic front, the Indian government has not been able to persuade either the Pakistanis to hand over the masterminds of the attacks. The tough line taken by India immediately after 26/11 — no talks unless we see action — has given way to yet another round of backslapping warmth between the two governments. That by itself is not objectionable, but the original determination seems to have got diluted, with the result that getting hold of those who had planned and were directing the attacks are still at large. Nor has India’s growing friendship with the US lead to hard answers about David Coleman Headley, his antecedents, his funders and his shadowy connections with US agencies.
Headley is a critical link in the events that led to 26/11 and this information will finally lay the plot bare. The Mumbai police wants access to him, but that looks unlikely to happen in the near future.
The one success that the Mumbai police can claim is the arrest, trial and conviction of Ajmal Kasab, the lone member of the 10-man terror team, who was nabbed, thanks to the bravery of a constable who lost his life. The investigators went over his background and found out details of the operation painstakingly, built up a strong case and convinced the judge, who handed down a death sentence.
This verdict has been upheld in the high court and his appeal to the Supreme Court is pending.
Many want him hanged right away and despair at the delays and the expense in keeping him alive, but that would be vengeance, not justice.
Will a more secure city, a diplomatic victory of getting hold of all the masterminds and the hanging of Kasab finally result in an emotional resolution for the near and dear ones of those who died and those who were injured? It might certainly help, but real closure will come only when all the untied, loose ends of what happened and why it happened are publicly discussed and debated. After 9/11 in New York, relatives of the victim launched a campaign to get the federal government to set up a commission where scores of officials and eyewitnesses were questioned and crucial documents were examined. The commission’s report has been criticised on several fronts and many documents are still classified, but it did expose security failures as well as systemic faults that led to the 9/11. The commission was a kind of catharsis for the US as a whole, even if it left people dissatisfied. Simultaneously, the government set up the department of homeland security and put in place concrete steps to increase security.
The Maharashtra government’s Pradhan committee report in contrast was done by a civil servant, in secret, and initially the administration refused to table it in the legislature. It gave a clean chit to the police in general, blamed the commissioner for all the lapses and was generally seen as a weak eyewash. A large committee of the great and the good (and the glamorous) citizens of Mumbai was set up to discuss what was to be done to make the city more secure, but this group of worthies met just once.
It is a disheartening fact that three years on, the best one can say is that Kasab’s appeal is being heard and that we can see more cops on the street. Outside the airport, one of the most sensitive installations in the city, a visitor will find armed policemen behind sand bag bunkers but also the usual band of touts, hangers on and the chaos that is so typical of India. Mumbaikars go about their business, but the fear that this commercial capital will always be on the radar of terrorists has been internalised.