What you might or might not know is that there were a total of 4 incidents involving trains today around the globe:
- BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, the subway system used in the San Francisco Bay Area) reported earlier today that one of the trains got stuck in the Trans-Bay tube (the part that goes under the water across the bay from SF to Oakland). Smoke was reportedly coming out of one of the cars. Thankfully, there were no fatalities.
- Many were reported dead (at least 33 at the last count) in a train crash in Bangladesh. The train reportedly plowed through a bus at an unmanned railway crossing (Source: CNN)
- Chicago subway train derailed and fills the subway with smoke. Dozens were taken to hospitals to be treated for smoke inhalation. Once again, thankfully, there were no fatalities reported.
- Finally, the biggest story of the day: 7 (some reports say 8) bomb blasts rip through commuter trains in the Indian financial center, Bombay, within 11 minutes of each other. Death toll has reached 174 according to latest CNN reports at the time of this blog, not to mention hunderds more injured (464 at the time of this blog). The death toll can be higher as time goes on.
I said that the biggest story was the blasts in India. I do not mean to diminish the tragedy that took place in Bangladesh. It is regrettable. But, in the end, that was an accident as opposed to the events in India.
The Bombay blasts were carefully orchastrated to conincide with the evening rush hour commute. For those who don't know, Bombay's commuter rail system (Western Railway System) shuttles 4.5 million passengers each day. Some go to work, some go to schools, while some use it to just get around. This incident is being condemned by world leaders - including Pakinsatni Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf - as a "despicable act of terrorism".
Eventhough there has so far been no claim of responsibility for the blasts, U.S. officials said the blasts followed a pattern initiated by the two main Islamic Kashmiri separatist terrorist groups. Adding support to this statement is the fact that earlier that same day, there were grenade blasts in Inidan-controlled Kashmir that killed at least 4 people.
My heart goes out to the families of those killed in both the Bombay blasts and the Bangladesh tragedy. Terrorism has become an everyday happenstance in our society. How many days go by before there is a terrorist attack in Israel, or Iraq, or Kashmir, or somewhere equally charged geographical location? Not many. Terrorist attacks have become as frequent as people sneezing. What has this world come to when innocent persons are being butchered for the pleasure, stubbornness, and inferiority complex of a small group? The term "despicable act of terrorism [or cowardice]" is being thrown around as casually as you say "Good Morning!" to your neighbor. It is easy to commit the act, but infinitely harder to counter it. Those who fight terrorism will be criticized and their persons and families will be put at risk.
One of the biggest problems of India storming all Islamic Fundamentalist groups is that some of them are not terrorists. India's second larget population is Muslim and any wrong step will create severe civil unrest. So, we bear it as a nation of one and move on. I'm not saying that we don't root out the terrorist camps. We do. But the need to tread carefully hampers the results. Some say we should take the route of Israel and just bomb the heck out of any suspected terrorist camps. But, intelligence always carries with it the risk of wrong analysis. How does a government balance this? How does a government choose between it's civic duty and ethical matters? What do you think? Let me know.
As a closing thought, I would like to ask the following: Did the attacks take place on 7/11 because so many Indians in the U.S. own 7-11 stores? Before you get sensitive on the matter, know that I am merely proposing a conspiracy theory much like the theory of Al Qaeda choosing 9-11 for the coincidence with U.S. Emergencies phone number, 911.
Let us all hope that these acts of terrorism will go into global decline as the War On Terror progresses.
Please pray for the victims of the attacks.
2 comments:
Good article. Unfortunately not much can be done until the people and government of India take aggressive action. Most of the terrorist attacks throughout the world today are being done by Muslims. This will be the same, right now the preliminary reports coming from Times of India indicate hand of LeT (a terrorist organization based out of Pakistan recognized by USA) and SIMI (a student muslim organization of India). The problem with taking aggressive action against these groups is that it will be seen as an act against Muslims in general. As your article points out India has a huge minority Muslim population and any action seen by them as against them can lead to civil unrest which nobody wants. So as far as I can see not much will happen and it is sad that these terrorist attacks will continue for the foreseable future.
Good article Sudhir, keep it up :)
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