Mumbai: Even after almost six years of 26/11 terror attacks, which claimed 164 lives and left over 300 injured, there are many important questions which remains unanswered.
Here are top five unanswered questions:-
1) Why weren’t we prepared to counter such terror attack?
The level of preparedness to counter such fidayeen attack was very low and this was suggested by the Ram Pradhan Committee that inquired into the attack. The report concluded that it “found total confusion in the processing of intelligence alerts”.
2) Did the attackers get support and inputs of locals?
Even after many years of the terror attack, the police have failed to answer whether the 10 attackers got local support. The then Mumbai police commissioner Hasan Gafoor, in February 2009, had categorically stated that “there were 14-16 locals” involved in the attack. Despite this, no concrete results came out.
3) Why we failed to decipher intelligence inputs?
There were reports that Mumbai Police received 16 secret intelligence alerts from 2006 onwards on the likelihood of a major attack with broad features of the 26/11 assault. These should have given sufficient indicators and enough time to government to upgrade our resistance capacity. Had the police acted on it, such a major attack would have been averted.
4) Who killed Karkare?
Even after six years of the attack, the mystery behind Hemant Karkare’s death remains unsolved. It took police almost a month to tell about circumstance in which Karkare and two other senior police officers were killed.
Also, intelligence report was received few days before 26/11 warning that Karakre’s life is in danger but how the government responded to it is yet not known.
5) Are we secure enough?
In the aftermath of the attack, Government took various steps to enhance the security mechanism. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) was set up, security protocols updated, coastal security beefed, city police teams trained to counter such strikes. But the questions remains, are we secure enough?
Suburban trains, railway stations, buses, markets, schools and streets remain vulnerable. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus which was the scene of a ghastly massacre on the 26th night and registered the highest number of deaths (58) is still an easy target.
