A federal investigation agency and a strong national anti-terror law are required to counter the subversives. While an impartial agency is needed to overcome inter-state and political rivalries to investigate the terrorist attacks in order to book the saboteurs, a tough anti-terror law would ensure faster conviction and accountability. Otherwise, the enforcement agencies will be bogged down in legal procedures. Classic illustrations of the present red-tape are the Uttar Pradesh police refusing to quietly hand over Bashir to the Gujarat police and SIMI’s so-called “amir” Shahbaz Hussain to the Rajasthan police despite both state governments repeatedly urging Lucknow that the media glare would ensure that their accomplices escape. And that is exactly what happened as SIMI’s key mastermind, Subhan Qureshi, aka Tauqeer, and Gujarat SIMI chief, Qayamuddin, escaped the police dragnet.

While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh realised the seriousness of the SIMI terror threat after the Ahmedabad arrests and so did Patil and Narayanan, the government did precious little to counter it. Losing sight of the fact that SIMI’s heroes include Osama bin Laden, Shivraj Patil confined himself to talk about revival of the “kotwali system” to counter terror.

For a country that has aspirations of occupying a seat at the global high table, terrorist attacks at regular intervals send out a message of poor governance, of hapless citizens left to fend for themselves as the state abrogates its responsibilities. This was again evident after the Delhi blasts as like in the past it was the same public and constables who were carting the dead and injured, with emergency services slow to offer assistance.

... contd.