UP serial blasts: What was the hidden motive?

Q: What do you make of the choice of location like not just three cities but they essentially have targeted civil courts this time and two of the blasts in Faizabad as well as Lucknow have occurred outside civil courts, which are essentially highly populated at this time of the day, almost 2,000-2,500 people are around that area as what our reporters tell us. What is the intension behind hitting the home of law?

A: Terrorists always look for soft targets because their intent is to spread terror, to spread a degree of tyranny amongst the people. The point remains that it’s very difficult for the police to provided man to man security. It is a civil society; the people who visit these areas and the NGOs and volunteers who should make sure that the areas in which they do business, or where they are frequent, they are adequately protected.

For instance, in Delhi we have seen the INA Market, where the shopkeepers have joined hands gaining from experience when on the eve of Diwali there was a terrorist strike. There are now close circuit cameras through which they keep a watch. So I think the civil society has to play a bigger role in helping the police in securing their lives.                  

Q: Would you expect the IG of Lucknow saying that search operations are on and about half an hour we will know about the death toll, we have already heard that about 15 people are feared death. We don’t have a number on the exact death toll. Do you believe this serial blast could be aimed at rocking the state right now and of course the national sentiment?

A: Yes of course. The national sentiment indeed is very tenuous on these issues. This country has seen the worst of carnages, perpetuated by terrorists across India. At times one feels that one is getting immune to it, but that isn’t so.

Whenever a person dies, an innocent life is expended in this manner, the faith is shaken in the law and order machinery, faith is shaken in the fact that whether it is coming from across the order, whether attempts were making to befriend our neighbors are succeeding or not. But the fact remains that there is a civil society across South Asia, which doesn’t want violence. There has to be a united front of that civil society to defeat the efforts of these terrorists who are nobody’s friends.

We are seeing what is happening in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and also what is happening in Bangladesh. So, let us not for a moment suspect each other or lose confidence in each other. I think societies across South Asia have to put up a united front. Within India there have to be some effort done in order to buttress the efforts to cops.