Letters: Book the ministers

In my view the most important question your editorial ‘Three sets of questions’, November1, raised in the context of Mumbai terror attack is: “if there have been failures in the system that allowed the attacks to take place, will all (not some) of the people responsible pay the price?” It is good that Home Minister, Shivraj Patil and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister R R Patil have resigned. Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh would in all probability be out by the time this letter is published and some officials have also been shifted. But, is this all the price of 195 lives lost in the terror attack?

As subsequent media reports have revealed, the terror attack could have been prevented had the Centre and state governments taken the warnings of the intelligence agencies seriously and acted upon them. The reports say that, since January 2008, central intelligence agencies issued four specific advisories to the Maharashtra government that a terrorist outfit was preparing to target Mumbai through the sea route but the state government did not take these seriously and there was no follow-up. The intelligence agencies had also warned of the possibility of an unidentified Pakistani trawler sailing from Karachi entering Indian waters. Seemingly, the Centre also didn’t realise the seriousness of the matter.

Resignations by politicians and shuffling of bureaucrats are well-known tactics of the ruling establishment to pacify people’s anger against their failures. To put it bluntly, it is an attempt to fool the people and shield the culprits from the law. If a few people die due to the collapse of a building, a flyover, a bridge or anything else, the officials in charge of the project are booked and prosecuted for negligence causing human deaths. Mumbai’s terror attack took place because of the negligence of ministers and bureaucrats. How is it that all those whose criminal negligence has caused 195 human deaths are being allowed to go scot free just by resigning from their ministerial posts or by being removed from their bureaucratic jobs? They must be booked under the provisions of the law and prosecuted.

M C Joshi, Lucknow