The saga of the questions continues…. Some rehashed questions from yesterday, some new ones, still the level of journalism remains abysmally low... I guess as some of my friends have said, in these times of recession when advertisers are holding back on spending, the media has to fill spaces. Too bored to really answer these again… Though atleast some of the questions are valid this time around.
1 Why are we bothering to convince Pakistan that the terrorists came from across the border? Why not have a world press conference in Mumbai where the surviving and arrested terrorist is produced before international media and made to confess his origin, where he was trained, and who gave him his orders?
2 Why didn’t the Colaba police chase and engage the terrorists behind the Leopold massacre as they walked down a bylane to Taj, firing at passersby? The shooting in the eatery reportedly lasted between two to four minutes. Wasn’t that time enough, and wasn’t it loud enough, for the Colaba police across the road to get their act together?
3 Why did the security forces at CST who reportedly fought back the terrorists who killed 60 passengers there not follow them onto D N Road and then Cama Hospital, where they lay in ambush for Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar? Why were these two terrorists just allowed to walk away?
4 Interrogation of terrorist Azam Amir Kasav, who was captured on Wednesday night while another was killed at Chowpatty, revealed that there were only eight terrorists between Taj, Oberoi and Nariman House. With this knowledge, couldn’t operations at the two hotels which have several access points been hastened? After all, there were just three terrorists each in Taj and Oberoi, and how much of these large properties could they be expected to cover? Whereas 200 commandos could have simultaneously stormed both hotels — 25 at a time from each entry. Surely, this would have been effective.
5 When terrorists hijack a plane, commandos surround the aircraft and charge only when negotiations fail; or when they know that passengers are being killed. In Mumbai’s case, there was never any doubt right from 9.30 pm on Wednesday that the terrorists were ruthlessly killing people. There weren’t any hostages; only hotel guests in hiding. Whoever the terrorists saw, they gunned down. This information the authorities got through SMSes and calls from inside the hotels. Yet, the commandos took so much time to storm the hotels.
6 Such a huge cache of arms, ammunition and explosives as was used at Taj and Oberoi would have been difficult to conceal in hotel rooms. How did the room service miss it?
7 The Mumbai Fishermen’s Association claims it warned the Chief Minister and police about RDX being smuggled into Mumbai through Gujarat. If true, why was no action taken on this information?
8 Strangely, the entire focus was on the ongoing terrorist action at Taj, Oberoi and Nariman House. Why was what happened at CST and Leopold kept out of the news?
9 Who was calling the shots in Mumbai? The Chief Minister, the Home Minister, the Director General of Police, the Police Commissioner, the top brass of the Army?
10 If Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil resigned owning moral responsibility for the terror attacks on Mumbai, what’s holding back Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister R R Patil? Even Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh?
