While the Mumbai Police got a reprieve by solving a part of the 7/11 riddle, the focus on investigation of the blasts has prevented it, as well as other police forces in the country, from uncovering other militant cells. Estimates of their number range from hundreds — a gross exaggeration — to just a handful, an understatement. Thus the foremost factor which portends an episodic event is the inability to neutralise the operative and sleeper cells in the country in the past few months, despite greater awareness of their reach and expanse extending from Coimbatore to Varanasi. The key deficiency in this sphere is human intelligence which enables penetration, rather than technical intelligence which facilitates investigation.

This festive season is particularly opportune for terrorist outfits, not just because Diwali spans the month of Ramzan, but because recent court verdicts against the perpetrators of the 1993 Mumbai blasts and 2001 Parliament attack have provided the malefactors with a warped raison d’etre in the eyes of their sympathisers. Politically, too, the season is extremely favourable. The recent moves Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has taken to revive the peace process with Pakistan have attracted hostile responses from within the country. A terrorist strike would considerably weaken the government’s efforts to initiate out-of-the-box solutions with Pakistan on the issue of state-sponsored terrorism. After all, terrorist organisations are the major losers of a joint Indo-Pak counter-terror mechanism, if and when it fructifies, for it would simply mean that they would be out of their jobs.

We need to remember that terrorism in the country also has an economic motivation. While the actual sums involved in conducting a strike are abysmally low, exponentially large sums of money is laundered by the top hierarchy, all of which is unaccounted. A successful strike during festivities only raises the profile of the plotters of the crime, increasing their demands from funding agencies. These spurious investments also have a zero stop loss clause as the downside is negligible.

A rational deductive-inductive analysis should therefore lead us to the conclusion that the coming festive season needs to be approached with a high degree of caution. Security of communally sensitive flashpoints once again assumes priority. Gujarat and Maharashtra will continue to be on the cross-hairs of these organisations. Despite having failed to raise the communal tempo in the past two attempts, the bunching of events provides them an incentive to try their luck a third time. Other states, such as Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, have also seen a rise of the communal tempo of late, which could be exploited by activating the existing cell networks. As always, Delhi continues to be politically sensitive and a repeat of the blasts of last year cannot be ruled out.

Without doubt those responsible for counter-terrorism in the country, whose profile and accountability necessarily remain obscure, would have carried out an analysis of the factors cited here and would be issuing adequate advisories down the line. But an I-told-you-so approach may not be enough to protect the average citizen.The anti-terror squads, police intelligence and crime branch networks must actively target possible cells, even while avoiding racial profiling and inter-branch rivalry. Security, particularly around religious places in every sensitive township, needs upgradation. The involvement of bazaar committees would also go a long way to supporting the police network in high density shopping areas. Police presence in public places needs to be actively supported by alert citizens mindful that their own lives are under threat.

We need to work together to ensure that this festival season will bring, not terror and trauma, but light and harmony into our lives.

The writer is a security analyst