TELEVISTA
New breed of terrorists
Amita Malik

The revelations of the Mumbai police have been nothing short of staggering. What drives young men from perfectly decent upper class families, who have had the best of education and training abroad, who have good jobs in prestigious firms and no financial or other social worries, to become terrorists for half the day, and send terror mails to innocent people? Perhaps one will never know. But the revelations have sent shudders down the spine of decent law-abiding Indians.

They have started looking with suspicion even at their relatives and acquaintances. Their families, faced with the truth, cannot come to terms with it. Sometimes parents wonder what they have done to deserve such ignominy when they have done their best for their children. It is a problem which is perhaps being faced all over the world. But in a comparatively conservative society like India’s, it is all the more difficult to understand.

Much of the joy of the current festive season has been marred by the violent acts of terrorists. — PTI photo

The problem is different in the case of a hard-boiled jehadi, who said, without turning a hair, that he would not hesitate to sacrifice his own mother if she had gone to a market which he was planning to blow up. How does one face or confront such fanaticism? The Vice-Chancellor of Jamia University has drawn flak for arranging legal aid for the two students suspected of the most heinous crime. His attitude is that of a responsible parent who should at least give his child the benefit of the doubt and give him a chance to clear himself if he is not guilty. It is perhaps not surprising that not everyone agrees with him.

In other words, terrorists seem to be breeding in the most unlikely places, including one’s home, and one does not know how to cope with the problem. It is perhaps inevitable that much of the joys of the current festive season have been marred by violence everywhere.

Markets being attacked is not a new phenomenon. But innocent young girls being shot dead in their cars when returning from work is something very different. The police has not made much headway in the case in which young journalist Saumya was shot dead in her car when returning from work in the early hours. It has revived the old question whether young women should be working late hours and driving home unescorted.

If they assert their independence, anxious parents have to sit up late for them to return home at odd hours. The father must be wondering why his young daughter was shot within minutes of her phoning to say she would be home in 15 minutes.

Now we come to the age-old problem of thousands dying every year because of stampedes, usually near temples situated at heights, which involves those coming down crashing into those going up. Lack of trained security to deal with unruly crowds has led to such stampedes increasing rather than decreasing every year. All that the authorities do, after people have been needlessly killed, is to offer monetary compensation, which is no substitute for precious lives lost due to their lack of adequate measures to avoid such tragedies.

One can only repeat that some people, notably the administrations which should know better, will never learn. Such needless deaths due to human error are worse compounded by trigger-happy police, who, when not breaking heads of even MPs by brutal lathi-charges, seem to have no hesitation in shooting to kill, when shooting in the legs or even shooting with rubber bullets would suffice. Perhaps human life has become too cheap in our over-populated country.