Some western media reports have now begun to criticise India for its unwillingness to confront its own failings. The Spanish daily El Pais has written: “Islamic extremism has its roots also in India. But it has always been trivialised by the Indian authorities”.
Interestingly, the Indian authorities name the accused first and investigate later. More recently, two serving officers of the Indian army, Col Srikant Purohit and Maj Samir Kulkarni, are facing trial for involvement in the Samjhota Express bombing in 2007, and another five, including a major-general and two colonels, are under investigation.
On Nov 26 within half an hour of the start of the terrorist attack in Mumbai, three senior police officers, Hemant Karkare, DIG Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar, who were investigating Col Purohit’s case, were shot at by some one from behind and killed, as if it was pre-planned.
The Mumbai police were equipped with bolt-action Lee Enfield rifles, used in the First World War, and they expected to stop terrorists using assault rifles. Hence, during the first encounter with terrorists, 14 policemen died.
When it was clear that the Mumbai police were out of their depth, Delhi dispatched its best soldiers, the NSG’s Black Cat commandos, who were equipped with clumsy old SLR rifles. It took them nine hours to make it to Mumbai when over 100 people were already killed in the Taj Hotel.
According to private rescue group ‘Zaka’ from Israel that flew ‘on its own volition’ to Mumbai for a rescue operation after the deadly terror attacks, the Indian commandos inadvertently killed some of the Jewish Israeli hostages during the raid on Chabad House.