Bombay - July 13 2011
There is no point in beating around the bush here - there are no leads at all. We have absolutely nothing .I have no idea what Sri. Maria is talking about - everything we had two days ago is turning out to be a dead end. The well is completely and utterly dry.
When the terrorists stuck in November 2008, that was bad - but what appears to have been worse - was that the deaths of the police officers went unavenged. I had feared this would happen, but at that time there was a compelling case to simply use the threat of force as a lever to secure Pakistani cooperation, and I went along with that scheme because it seemed promising.
That scheme however is insufficient to maintain the balance of terror needed to keep the city from falling apart. I deeply respect the IPC and the CrPC, these form the closest thing to a policeman's Bible, Gita or Koran in India - but what holds the peace is not the IPC or CrPC, it is what my Pathan friends would call "badal" - the law of inseparable consequence.
When the deaths of the flag officers in the police department go unavenged - it creates a highly destabilising opportunity for criminal enterprise.
The lesser Jihad of Pakistani groups is simply a criminal enterprise. I had brought this up in the posts after the 2008 attacks, but groups like LeT want to advertise their ability to "resolve conflicts" in Bombay. This means exactly what it says - there is a thriving market in murder-for-hire in Bombay and the LeT wants a piece of the action. The LeT is like a big MNC that is entering the Indian market trying to out compete all the local supari wallahs by selling their brand of paan, gutkha, tambaccu or chuna to any available bidder.
Thanks to the thriving outsourcing business in Bombay - the LeT can outsource most of its operations to local players - and if everything is locally sourced - there is no need to for any connection back to the LeT. There is plausible deniability.
I don't like this kind of MNC, and I don't like this kind of outsourcing.
I think the time for delay is past.
Even if it is only an aging Kapothka - we still need it in the air.
And it is high time "Bhai" came home.
posted by maverick @ 9:02 AM
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