Hyderabad Blues* – II

Things are beginning to look interesting.

Praveen Swamy writes in The Hindu’s Op-Ed (extract):

“…A mass of credible electronic intelligence suggests that HuJI’s director of south India operations, Abdul Sahel Mohammad, operates out of Karachi. Mohammad — a one-time Hyderabad resident who uses the code names ‘Shahid’ and ‘Bilal’ — is wanted by Interpol for at least four separate terror strikes.

Pakistan has responded to Indian calls for his arrest by flatly denying his presence on its soil.

…
Indian intelligence has known since March 2007 that eight kilogrammes of military-grade explosive were delivered to an HuJI operative in Hyderabad. However, for its own reasons, the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh did not allow the kinds of aggressive — and unpopular — policing that the Central Bureau of Investigation and city police felt were necessary to secure the city. “

As Nitin writes in his post, “Who blocked efforts to smoke out the terrorists?”   Intelligence didn’t fail… It was vote-bank politics that triumphed.

The Economic Times headlined “Hyderabad yet to recover from terror shock“. Did these guys learn nothing from the spirit of Mumbai?

Meanwhile,  NY Times had this quote:

“Our country is so big that even if we have the information that something is planned, we do not know where or when,” said Shivraj Patil…

🙁

Now wait for the drama to unfold:

1. There will be a strong “official” reaction and promises of strong action against the “culprits”
2. Government will appeal for maintaining communal harmony and peace
3. Police will claim “leads”, suggest Pak role in the attacks
4. A few LeT/HuJI operatives may be arrested
5. A few weeks later, the police will unearth evidence that Pakistan was indeed behind the attack

…and things will move on. I wrote this almost two years ago – yet it feels as if it was yesterday.

We have already moved from stage 1 through to stage 5. Here is stage 2 (for the record):

“Bangladesh condemned the bombings and rejected the allegation that Bangladeshi groups were involved.

Pakistan also reacted angrily to Mr. Reddy’s comments, characterizing them as an “irresponsible” reaction.”

Watch this space – or switch to Mallika Sherawat & Himesh on MTV.

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Last Word**

“…Back in the nostalgic era we had extensive discussion on whether India was perceived to be a soft state….(Today)…every two bit hustler from Peshawar to Dhaka knows the answer to that one.”

Amen. 

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* with apologies to Nagesh Kukunoor

** From Kaushal’s comment on Bharat-Rakshak

Related Post: Another day, another blast – “Kuch nayee baat batao yaar”