Showing posts with label Terrorist attack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terrorist attack. Show all posts

Monday, February 25, 2013

Terrorists at Hyderabad


On the evening of 21st February terrorists visited the city of Hyderabad and 16 persons were died and more than a hundred wounded, many of them in critical condition. Two bombs placed in a Tiffin carrier on a cycle were exploded in ten minutes’ difference in the midst of an evening crowd gathered for shopping etc.  India has been free of terrorist- attacks after the Mumbai attack and that made this one  least anticipated and shocking.


The bomb explosions in an innocent, unsuspecting crowd are very sad and disturbing as it kills  healthy individuals in cold blood or make them abysmally sick for life in a few seconds. It opens a door to a world of terror and death in seconds. The sorrow of people depending on the individual and the individual’s own pain, anguish all are quite hard to face. Yet such things happen every now and then.

Though the general trend is to blame Governments for laxity on their part, the fact remains that it is not easy for a Government to watch and prevent them all the time. In a vast country the terrorists can choose any city and any corner to attack. India is also a little vulnerable for such attacks due to historical, geographical and political reasons. Recently a proposal to monitor and act on terrorists by the central Government could not be implemented as the State Governments stood against it saying it would be an infringement upon Federalism. That was more a political move by the States than a constitutional concern and now the Hyderabad incident is a price paid for it. The central Government had prior information of an impending attack and it sent messages to States and obviously the States did not take the message more than a routine one.

The Andhra  Government says that it had not received sufficiently specific warning from Center to take action and the Center blames that despite several warnings State did nothing. A situation like this would not have happened had Center Government been given full powers to enter and take action against terrorist in States. The Union Government should again pursue the matter with the State Governments and the State Governments, on their part, should live up to the national safety and interest involved in the  matter setting aside smaller concerns.

Above all, communal harmony is a key factor for preventing such incidents in the long term scenario. The politicians should work for it beyond lip-service. The colonial strategy of divide and rule method is still followed by politicians and it is time they saw matters beyond votes and elections for a harmonious society.

A good relation with Pakistan is also important in curbing terrorist activities. The relation is not improving in a desired pace. If the mutual issues cannot be solved bilaterally there is no harm in involving a trusted third party for a serious discussion on all pending issues and reaching to a lasting solution.


Lastly, it is wrong to eulogize those cowards who kill innocent people insidiously by calling them as terrorists, they are really creeps and call them as such.




Images from Google

Friday, July 29, 2011

THE ATTACK IN NORWAY

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  What happened in Norway would not appear as a terrorist attack. It looked like an attack of a mad man as killing hapless children in cold blood can represent no philosophy other than a devilish insanity.

 Anders Behring Breivik's defense lawer says that he is insane and needs medical check up.

But Norway's Domestic intelligence chief, Janne Kristiansen, think differently. She said “I have been a defense lawyer before and in my opinion this is clearly a sane person because he has been too focused for too long and he has been doing things correctly”. She further said ' in my experience of having had these sorts of clients before, they are normally quite normal but they are quite twisted in their minds and this person is total evil'

The investigators of his past found out that his metamorphosis in to his present stage was in slow tempo. In school he was a normal child an inconspicuous child at that. Though he became a Muslim-hater later,  his best friend in school was a Muslim boy. His former classmates remembered him as a quite and intelligent boy. His early life was in Skoyen, Western Oslo .His father was a civil servant and mother a nurse and they divorced when Anders was one year old. His recollection about that period in his 1500 page Manifesto is, as a good time.He studied in best schools and later he joined the youth wing of the Progress Party. Then for some reason he got estranged with his father who then went to France. Then his sister, Elizabeth became his rallying point in life. But she also left him to go to the U.S where she married an American and settled there. Breivik became lonely and this period is presumed to have pushed him in to far right  thoughts. As.he had relied his sister very much her desertion affected him. He started showing interest in Neo-Nazi, Freemasons etc organisations, though he did not become an active member in them.

There are rightists in the world but  they do not commit criminal acts in order to press their point. But unlike others,  Breivik started planning and collecting things to execute his bizarre program and from then onward  he turned out to be an abnormal person.The boundaries between far right thoughts and insanity disappeared..

 
Norway, being long bereft of any violence or terrorist attacks, was very ill prepared for the insane Breivik.. He was clever enough to explode the Bomb at first  in main land Oslo as it kept the Police busy and in the melee, it took some time for the Police even to attend telephone call from Utoya island and finally to sink in the gravity of events taking place there. Then there was no Helicopter to take them to the island and after a search found out a rugged Boat which nearly sank with the weight of the passengers. The Police took about an hour or so to reach the island. If a Helicopter was handy they could have reached the island in 15 minutes which in turn would have saved many lives. Since that man was in a killing spree all this while, the time factor played a crucial role. That was a serious and tragic lapse.

 In Norway terrorism was never considered a possibility. Though it had revised its counter terrorism laws in 2008, it was only  to ratify the council of Europe convention on prevention of terrorism. However, those revisions allowed the Government to punish recruitment and training for terrorist work so as to nip such movements in the bud itself. It is doubtful whether Norway took a serious approach in the matter.Some terrorists like Mullah Krekar live in Norway but they are lying low and there is lack of sufficient evidence to arrest them. Anyway this is the first major bloodshed in public since the World War II.

 Breivik was active in internet and could get in touch with many like minded persons before executing the attack.



Epilogue : Breivik was sentenced to 21 years' imprisonment and that is the maximum punishment that could be given under civilized Norwegian judicial system. However the authorities will see to it that he is not released from jail endangering the society.



Images Google