AFTER the Second World War, and knowing the atrocities committed by Hitler, the world vowed that never again would they allow such to happen, or such a person like him to rule unhindered. Looks like the world quickly forgets. I do remember that Night of Terror exactly fifteen years ago in Mumbai.
I was just a few feet away as hundreds died! The Press Club where I was spending that evening is situated a few hundred feet from both the CST station where innocents were mercilessly gunned down, and nearly in front of the Madam Cama hospital where others were ruthlessly shot point blank that night, and we were also a few kilometres from the Taj Hotel where mass executions took place. As gunshots receded, we heard the sound of the lone jeep which sped down the road outside, and which carried the three brave officers who became lifeless bodies in a few minutes.
I saw photographers running in, unloading ghastly pictures of the bloodied railway station, where terrified men, women and children, in crouching positions, behind sad, pathetic remnants of their baggage were mowed down by the machine guns of Kasab and his accomplice.
I was hardly a few feet away, and it was only providence that did not allow these terrorists from walking towards the bright lit Mumbai Press Club, where we would have all been sitting ducks. But I believe there’s a reason we scribes were spared; and that, to tell the world, “Never Again!”
Never again should such carnage take place, where both poor and wealthy were targeted and killed, even as they looked at their bloodied selves with lifeless eyes, asking ‘Why?” Yes, why? What made Kasab and gang willingly sail stormy seas, risk their lives from Navy and Coast Guard, strut through strangers and walk fearlessly into four different locations to kill, and be killed?
Why? Well, evidence gathered shows they had been fed with scenes of atrocities and conditioned to believe that injustice of a high magnitude was being inflicted on their community in our country. In their minds, they repaid hate with hate. And that is how terrorism thrives; on the wheels of hate!
Those wheels are turning now. With no thought of the damage this can do to our nation, hate is being used as a tool to win elections. Anger, harnessed to create the right atmosphere for violence, and with violence comes rapes and murders as we are seeing time and again.
I was hardly a few feet away. Why were we spared? I believe, to shout, “Never Again!” You can stop it! By not allowing such sowers of hate get elected. Can you see lifeless eyes, from the Taj Mahal Hotel, Oberoi Hotel, CST station, Leopold Café and the Chabad Jewish House, pleading silently, “Never again..!”
—Email: bobsbanter@gmail.com
