Bombay Terror Attacks

It has been many days since the actual siege of Bombay ended.

But it will take many days before the mental siege ends.

The terror attacks on Bombay have been widely reported all over the world with a lot of on the ground coverage and live telecasts being beamed into our homes as the events unfolded.

Major takeaways from the tragedy are;

1. Politicians are only interested in holding on to their seats and their inaction vis-a-vis modernizing the police force led to poor response to the situation. The bureaucrats that advise our politicians are equally to blame as they impede the decision making process in every department of the government. All concerned (actors in this sordid drama) should not only be axed but should face a court case of culpable homicide amounting to murder. They, if convicted, should be handed out capital punishment setting a precedent for all to follow.

2. Atrium type design in hotels, malls, hospitals and other buildings offered the terrorists strategic advantage when it came to fighting our brave soldiers.

3. While our commandos fought these bastards, no special tools, such as building plans, walk throughs were made available to them. They fought a brave a often blind battle against the well entrenched terrorists.

4. Building designs should be done in such a way that it is possible to isolate sections of the building without affecting the ability to rescue hostages. All buildings should have mandatory fire escapes on their exteriors.

5. While the Television Journalists did a commendable job of live reportage, they should have factored in the possibility of their reportage being used by the controllers in guiding the terrorists. Henceforth, TV media should not be allowed to cover such events live, at best they can be given a controlled feed from ground zero by a single responsible source and the feed should be suitably time delayed.

6. Elevators (Lifts as we call them in India) should have remote management capabilities thus allowing the manager to restrict their use in emergencies. In high rises such a facility will restrict movement of terrorists from one floor to another.

7. Buildings, especially public buildings should have a sanitized approach area. All people entering the premises should walk down at least a 50 meter corridor before entering any building. Cars should not be allowed to be parked or driven to the building. Everyone, and that means everyone (including the President and Prime Minister) should follow this rule.

8. All police men on the street all over the country should be armed with AK-47 or AK-56 assult rifles and should be provided with enough ammunition to last them for a 30 minute engagement with any terrorist. All .303 rifles should be immediately discarded. Police personell manning important positions should be provided with latest communication hardware and protective gear to protect them in case of any attack.

9. Security of elected representatives should be scaled back till the security on the street does not equal of exceed the requirements of these elected representatives.

10. Every state should have an ERT (Emergency Response Team) with the same level of training as the NSG to take the menace hands on.

11. Real time surveillance of buildings should be done using high resolution video equipment and not useless CCTV systems that hardly produce any useful input to the control center.

12. Video feed should be available over Internet such that the need of a control center is done away with.

I am sure I will be able to add a lot of other suggestions to this list as time goes by.

I am also sure that the authorities that be are more smarter than me and can think and implement much more that this small list that I have put up.