The Tata Institute–or the IISc–campus evokes very joyous memories, which can only be poetically described, a visual representation of scenes that you find in the Nature poet par excellence, Wordsworth. My house was barely a 10-minute-walk away from the serene campus and we precisely used to do that: walk in the campus till our legs dropped.
And now this.
Terror struck an international conference at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) campus on Wednesday night killing a retired Mathematics professor from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, M.C. Puri, and seriously injuring four others including one of the inventors of the Simputer, Prof Vijay Chandru from IISc.
Our Protectors the Police and politicians have begun the blame-game before even twenty four hours have passed. As Nitin says
If Bangalore was unprepared, it is perhaps less due to lack of intelligence reports, but because of a lack of intelligence.
I partly agree. There’s another factor that you can add to lack of intelligence: it is called deliriction of duty. Kannada tabloids week after week continue to dig out dirt on the appalling corruption in the police department: a senior officer reportedly paid upto a crore to get posted to a “lucrative” area in Bangalore, another was suspended for deliriction of duty, yet another was an accomplice in a string of pickpocket cases, still another was rumoured to run a brothel… in short our cops seem to do everything other than what they’re paid for.
Nitin asks in the same blog post:
Were there any intelligence reports suggesting that an attack in Bangalore was imminent? If so, what did the political leadership do about it?
Here you go.
The terrorist attract at IISc was waiting to happen. At least, that’s what investigative agencies were told as they interrogated several terrorists arrested recently.
Sources said these agencies had informed the Home Ministry that the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had been planning to attack Bangalore, India’s software capital.
While J-K police have suggested that the attack could be the work of an LeT cell that evaded capture recently, a suspected terrorist arrested in Hyderabad had told interrogators in Delhi that Bangalore was on the hitlist of certain Bangladesh outfits. Ministry sources, however, said the IISc was never mentioned as specific target and the LeT’s involvement, if any, remains unconfirmed.
More alarming is the thoroughness with which they had scrutinized the target before the attack:
Says IGP (Kashmir Range) K Rajendra: ‘‘If this is a terrorist attack, it is not surprising. Last year, we unearthed a Lashkar network in Srinagar which had done elaborate reconnaissance at IISc and various IITs. We captured almost everyone except one cell that was missing.”
And another damning report from Deccan Herald which says:
The city police have continued to ignore frequent intelligence warnings to provide adequate security to the IISc. The attack on Wednesday night is the second security lapse at the institute in 10 months.
As noted above, the city police have other pressing tasks on hand than providing security to an elite, bloated and self-important institute like the IISc. The current state, attitude and behaviour of the police mirrors that of the political class which dubs economic development as the concern of the rich and therefore irrelevant. The people need to take this political class to task for deliberately allowing Bangalore to rot.
Just three days ago, on Dec 26, three militants apprehended in Delhi spilled dangerous beans.
In a joint operation with Bengal police, a special cell of Delhi police has arrested three militants planning to strike IT parks in Bangalore and Hyderabad and plott- ing the deaths of Andhra Pradesh politicians. [...] “They have been planning to target the special task force office in Hyderabad, politicians in Hyderabad, Bangalore Software Park and Hyderabad Hitec City, markets and busy places and railway stations in north India,” he said. “They planned to hit these companies in an effort to hinder economic development of the country.” … The Lashkar trio had also visited Bangalore and surveyed the location of several software companies in December 2004.
Wasn’t this intelligence sufficient for the Bangalore police to wake up? What’s more, the morons in uniform instead of calling a spade a spade are busy trying to invent explanations; in Nitin’s words:
They’ll probably blame it on a disgruntled student next.
Deve Gowda will come up with another statement to appease his rural votebase. “This is a high tech killing. This is the price for allowing companies like Infosys to flourish. Will this happen in villages?” Enough incentive for the cops to relapse into their slumber.
Apropos Niketan! Very well put. The sure sign of caving in due to fear is to suspend all normal, routine activities. Bangalore should wake up and kick out the real terrorists: Deve Gowda and Dharam singh.
This is dastardly. I remember the institute as my wife’s house is quite close by and we had walked all over the institute after our marriage. Incidentally during our last visit to Bangalore around 6 months back my wife , mother and 2 kids planned to go to the institute for a walk and to show it to our kids. However we were not allowed to go any further from the main entrance due to security reasons. Hence it is surprising how a car with AK47 wielding people was able to get in.
It is inexcusable for the police lapse. Good comment of what we can expect from the likes of Deve Gowda. My condolences to the family of Prof MC Puri. Pray that the other injured people pull through.
It is also bad that at such a critical juncture when we need a strong govt who will ensure that the economic momentum is not lost,we have such an ineffective govt which has repealed POTA, will continue to sign gas pipeline deals and continue with the peace process etc. Our secular writers will pretend that this nver occurred.
Our public will continue to patronise Indo-Pak cricket matches.
Kudos to the staff at the IIsc who have ensured that this does not disrupt business as usual