Attack aftermath: Editors on what politicians should now do

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Vinod Mehta, Editor-in-Chief, Outlook said, both the major political parties i.e. the Congress and the Bhartiya Janta Party or BJP must unite in this fight against terror, and this kind of name calling - 'Hindu Terror' and 'Islamic Terror' - which in general is terror.

 

Mehta feels that there is a huge intelligence lapse here. So the questions arises that is our intelligence gathering system in these matters really quite appalling and inefficient?

 

"Thus, political solidarity and then our intelligence system must be really revved up and we must try and invigorate that," he said.

 

Hence, Mehta said the first thing that the new government should do is look at this whole Indian security apparatus. "But I fear that in the end it will all end up in one side accusing the other of being soft, and the other saying that the other side is soft," he added.

 

Christine Glancey, Managing Editor, Wall Street Journal, said, "There will be some fallout and some checked schedules and the business community will perhaps revise their plans in the near term. It's quite unique that although India has a long history of terrorist attacks, still they are singling out western or foreign business people in those hotels."

                                                                

Chandan Mitra, Editor-in-Chief, Pioneer said, terror has been a very prominent issue in this election because of the feeling that the government in the Center and particularly in Maharashtra has been extremely lackadaisical in approaching the whole question of terror.   

 

According to Mitra, there is a serious national crisis and the whole country has come to grips with it. There has to be a broad consensus between all political parties, especially, the media parties on how to tackle this and particularly the introduction of terror laws to strengthen the Intelligence Network.

 

"Unfortunately, government so far has not shown that open-mindedness to involve everybody in this planning. I hope this is a - even though it is a last minute one but - at least a wake up call and now the government will not indulge in politics and involve everybody in this attempt to combat terrorism."

 

Recollecting of such an incident in recent past, Mitra said, "During the last month, the Anti-Terrorism Squad or ATS of the Mumbai Police got engaged in a wild-goose chase, trying to pin down some people allegedly responsible for spawning Hindu terror and in the process they allowed the Jihadi terrorists sufficient time to regroup and plan perhaps the most diabolical terror attack anywhere in the world since 9/11."