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Around 6 pm local time the Indian capital New Delhi was rocked by four bomb blasts which took place in the city's busiest market places. Blasts in Connaught Place, Karol Bagh and Greater Kailash took claimed the lives of ten people while dozens of injured were rushed to nearby hospitals. No group has so far claimed the responsibility for the blasts.
It's like a curfew out in the city with police vans patrolling appealing to the people not to panic and report any suspicious person or object. The mobile phone networks are jammed; I have network tower just meters away from my home still my phone had no connection for about two hours. I have been trying to call my friends without any success. No buses are plying, no private vehicles on the road it hardly seems a weekend evening.
The senior police officials were quickly mobbed by journalists questioning their failure to prevent the blasts even after having intelligence regarding the same. The people have really lost the count of these blasts, it's like there are blasts every month in some city - Jaipur, Bangalore, Surat, Mumbai - and the human toll just keeps rising.
I'm a frequent visitor to two of the three place the blasts took place - Connaught Place and Greater Kailash. A bomb was planted in a dustbin located just outside one of the gates of the Central Park which is right in the center of Connaught Place, one of the busiest shopping areas in the city. Numerous international brands have their stores located in this area where people come to shop in huge numbers and the fast food joints of McDonald's and Pizza Hut are always full to capacity. Greater Kailash is the real posh shopping hub of Delhi. You'll find the best of the international brands here but you'll never find parking space. You can find all the well known international brands here and lot many eateries.
I have no doubt that terrorism would be a big issue next year's general elections and many have pointed out the government's weakness to stern action against terrorists. The government has been delaying the hanging of the terrorist behind the Parliament attack of December 2001 - many analysts believe the government is dragging feet over the issue so as to protect its Muslim vote bank. One of the minister's advocated for lifting the ban on one of the terror organizations, Students Islamic Movement of India which allegedly gets support from the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, all this because the ruling party's new allies feared of losing Muslims votes.
This streak of blasts could potentially derail the peace process between India and Pakistan. The Pakistani army has already intruded into the Indian territory once this year - a first since the Kargil War in 1999 - and have violated the ceasefire on numerous occasions, sometimes firing unprovoked in order to help terrorist sneak into the Indian territory.
The government now has to answer the tough questions people have been asking for months now. The anger is building up now and the situation very well grow as tense as it was just after the Parliament attack when India and Pakistan mobilized a million soldiers on the borders and the stand off continued for months.
