The showdown with the terrorists is over. The people who lost their loved ones are still grieving. The investigation has begun.    News channels have slowly begun showing a little bit of other news as wellBlame has already  been assigned to elements in Pakistan. Pak government vehemently denies any involvement of its official ranks. News channels have slowly starting to show a little bit of other news. Experts are being lined up at the talk shows analyzing what went wrong and what could be the implications. Now, let us examine what we could do in the future, to prevent such an attack or to reduce the damage in the event of the next attack.

1. Sharing of Intelligence between the agencies

Indian intelligence agencies, both at the state and national levels are widely considered as very competent. However, there is a fatal lack of a system to enable these individual agencies to share the intelligence and this fragmented system proves time and again to be very inefficient. We need to have a system put in place as soon as possible as a part of a single national security policy.

2. Formation of more efficient Emergency Management Agencies

The current system that manages crises like happen is voefully ill-equipped to handle these scenarios. There need to be a SWAT style commando system at each metro – big or small- to be able to handle everything from a small gang war situation to a major terrorist operation. In this incident, the first response squad that reached the TAJ hotel and other premises were really not ready to face such adversaries. This led to the death of Hemant Karkare, the head of the ATS, who rushed to the scene but was gunned down. We can learn from the operations in Israel or other western countries and come up with a better plan to do these. We have the elite men that can get the job done. What we lack is a good plan. And quick response by effective force is really vital.

3. Better management of the situation

The first thing that any operation like this should do is to cordon off a few blocks of the location and keep everyone, whether they are journalists or general public, off the scene. This helps the troops better handle the situation and also make sure that the commando operations cannot be leaked to the terrorists themselves through media. I’m sure this has been discussed already at this site. The live news is not really as important as the lives of the hostages.

After all, it is true that prevention is better than cure. However, once a malady occurs, we have to make sure that the cure is also quick, effective and responsible. Regardless of what we tell Pakistan to do, the terrorists will try to do what they want to do. What we have to do is to be ready.Similar Posts:

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As we have always been targeted by the terrorists since Independence, here is another tragic incident of horrible, horrible slaying of scores of innocent men and women. The final numbers are yet to be known, but there is no explanation or rationalization that can justify the carnage.

We also do not know who is behind this even though a phony group named Deccan Mujahidin has taken responsibility- or claimed credit, I should say. By the sophistication of the coordination, it is clear that whoever has done it had plenty of help from established terrorist organizations. One main purveyor of these activities that comes to mind is Lushker-e-Toiba or Jaish-e-Muhammed who could well be behind this massacre.

There has been massive planning going on for this. The angle of their attack has been unique. They have targeted Victoria Terminal so as to make the number of causalities high and make it a big incident. They have also made sure to attack Taj and Oberoi hotels and primarily targeted the American and British citizens. This made sure that this attack was carried and discussed far and wide. I should say they were successful in that. All the main news channels in the US has been continuously covering only the Mumbai terror attack story from the moment it happened. This kind of coverage is unprecedented.

One thing that the government cannot afford to do is not to take any quick and effective action. If LeT or JeM which operates from Pakistan is proved to be behind this, the government should not waste any time to finally put a stop to their operation. There are two ways this can be done. I am not advocating for military action as the first course of action. However, the government should use all the diplomatic pressure and even use the US to force Pakistani government to take out the terrorist camps within Pakistani border.

Also, Terrorism is growing at a rapid pace and is even spreading to areas that were not usually prone to Jihadi influence. Organizations like SIMI had always worked with Lashkar and Jaish in the past and there should not be any hesitation to round up any suspect who could well be planning the next attack. We have seen a few people from Kerala who were part of Terrorism. Even the state government has the duty to explore and investigate organizations like NDF and make them either purge unwanted elements from their ranks and come clean or be ready to face banning.

There is not much time we can waste.

Further Reading

1. Some photos that came out within minutes.

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