Mumbai has been taken to ransom again by a group of teenagers. This time the story is a little different it is not Raj Thakeray or Shiv Sena or BJP taking the credit for the killing but LeT and some new terrorist wing…….. same product new packaging. When I started my blog I had vowed never to make this a political or a current affair channel….. we have all of that in excess as it is from our daily dose of news channels and newspapers….. I refrained from commenting but day before yesterday night’s incident prompted me to break the cardinal rule that I had made.

Every alternate month we see something “INTERESTING” happening in this city….. and people losing their lives for some or the other reason. In fact “INTERESTING” here is a synonym for “KILLING”. It is Raj Thackeray’s Amchi mumbai or the terrorists killing people…… sometimes it is as natural as the rain water killing people only difference is the weapons used for mass destruction and the places but human being die. I live in a city which has the maximum tax collection and we are not provided with the basic sense of security or basic amenities specially the state government’s inability to give us our basic fundamental right of SECURITY. There is no value for human life here. People in Mumbai have lost faith in the police and the intelligence and most importantly on the government. It is just not enough to take care of the economic condition of the country and raising or lowering the LPG rates or the Petrol rates but also to look at the security of the citizens of the country…. guess our prime minister and home minister have not yet learnt that.

The Taj and the Oberoi were earlier rumored to not allow even the people who wore chappals inside. I mean the people there were so vigilant/observant that not even a person wearing chappal could get past them and now some goons (apparently teenagers) come with tons of RDX and so much ammunition and get past the security at the gate and front desk to their rooms. So much of weapons that for the last 36 hours they have not stopped firing and every half an hour one hour they throw a grenade to show that they are still there. It is appalling to think of the snobbery of these people who stop people wearing chappals and not people carrying RDX and that too tons of grenades and sophisticated guns. What did they say that they were carrying “LEAD RACKETS??” They would have needed people to smuggle all that arms and ammunition to their rooms. What were the security doing then…… or did they think that a place like taj and oberoi could never be hijacked????

We have had the 1993 blasts and since then time and again the people have held Mumbai to a ransom with whatever they could….. do we never learn???? We have even had explosions at different places with innocent people getting killed. Some friends out on a night walk after dinner were killed after an explosion at colaba. There have been explosion at the VT terminal where innocent people waiting for their trains or locals were fired at. Was that not a security lapse??? The firing and hostage situation is on even as I write. It has been 36 hours since the killing has started and nothing has been done yet. The NSG was brought in yesterday (27Th) afternoon….. hours after the cell phone news updates reported the killing and all this time as my friend rightly pointed out the fore bearers of Mumbai city who just recently claimed “amchi mumbai” were nowhere to be seen.

We belong to the land of Shivaji and the Peshwas and is this our predicament to remain within the walls of our homes watching the latest updates of what the news channels feed to us??? or maybe everyday when we go to our work places keep wondering whether the next blast the next bullet has our name on it and answer phone calls and mails of worried family and friends calling to check whether we were all ok. While all the elite crowd talk of the Mumbai way of life/Mumbai spirit….. that the show must go on!!! has anybody ever questioned why??? Why us??? Just because we are SPIRITED??? Like any other place we also are eligible for a secured life a life devoid of uncertainty. When we leave home in the morning we don’t know whether we would be caught up in the rain and have to walk down from Andheri to Navi mumbai or we would be caught up in the riots and stone pelting or we would die in train blasts or we would be made hostage while news channels have a ball at our ultimate destiny….. is that all it is about “DESTINY” do we have to live with the attitude that “if we have to die we will die where ever we are so might as well go on and do our job“…….. “the show must go on” etc etc

I live in the suburbs and even then I had police swarming all over the place…. some lady calling up and asking telling the ITC Fortune hotel that they were the next target. All the roads here had been sealed and we were cooped up in front of our television sets hoping for normalcy to return while we heard the different political parties make their stands on the hostage situation. One 9/11 had the whole of America come together and do so many combing operations that something like that will not happen in the near future….. why cant we take a stand like that instead of debating the pros and cons of the situation and dealing in the statistics. The incident has actually revealed the sad state of the Indian security system and also turned to shambles the claims made by any government. The latest has that some of the terrorists have escaped and have gone on to execute the next blast….. They are more busy than the Indian security/army/raw/police/intelligence put together….. maybe they the intelligence personnel should take some tips from the terrorists and go in for some refresher courses to these LeT guys!!! guess they would fare much better.

I don’t really know whom to blame the government and chief minister who has been lax and not taking any action in time rather who spent his time giving us the statistics or the prime minister who actually makes it to the scene of the crime almost 15 hours later looking sheepishly for a way to go back to some economic conference or back to the arms of Bush or now Obama or the police who have no idea what to expect and marching in front of the terrorists and getting killed in the process or the security agencies who have never ever done anything in time or the NSG for not conducting the combing operations in time…… or us for being so tolerating for taking all the shit and letting people get away with just about anything!!!

“JAGO MUMBAI JAGO”