26/11 one year later

Today marks the anniversary of the most barbaric activity in the history of the city of Mumbai. It’s been exactly one year today, yet all the images are still vividly fresh in my mind as if it had happened just yesterday. Probably the sole reason why I was deeply disturbed by this incident is that the entire activity happened just five to ten minutes away my house with curfews being put regularly and rumors causing unnecessary panic. I still remember, I was studying when I received a call from my brother at about 9:50 p.m. about some attack on CST, so I switched on the T.V and what followed was 60 hours of complete shock, anger, and trauma.

Now that one year is past and if we look back past one year many changes were made in the combat system of Mumbai Police. New modern arms and ammunition were supplied to the Mumbai police, Mumbai got its own NSG force. Much of the credit goes to the policies implemented by our home minister Mr. P. Chidambaram. But whatever has been done and is being done sufficient to keep the terrorist away. If we take a look at past one year, not a single terrorist attack happened, no SIMI , no LeT, wait a minute, doesn’t that sound fishy? Are we really safer now? Well that’s anybody’s guess. I personally think that whatever happened in Mumbai last year was more of our fault that that of the government. We as a citizen of Mumbai have a very important responsibility as well as duty to be vigilant and each time any such attack happens we fail to deliver our responsibility.

People say the Mumbaikars are resilient, but is that truly the case? I don’t think so, ask yourself. We are resilient by force since we have no choice but to get up and move out because no one is going to come to your house and feed your family when such attacks happen. Today I saw people all over India lighting candles, symbolizing peace but is that truly making any difference. Rather why don’t we sent a strong message among the people to be alert citizens so that god forbids, if any such attack is imminent it can be avoided. After all we have to be the change to see the change. On this first anniversary of the 26/11 attack, I appeal to all mumbaikars, from fishermen to businessmen, from laborers to managers, from collage students to senior citizens to take a pledge. Lets pledge today to be more vigilant, Lets pledge today to be better citizens