These days whenever you wherever in Mumbai the most common thing you find at every nook and corner is a sandbag post albeit abandoned. Tight Security supposedly!
Is Mumbai a battle-ground? Is it not supposed to be a City?
(A Paramilitary personnel mans a post at Mumbai CSt station. He is armed with a 5.56mm INSAS rifle and has a buller-proof vest but alas no protective head-gear!)
Moreover the policemen, if they do occupy these posts are 2 to 3 in number and have one SLR in between them! The others are armed with state-of-the-art lathis! Moreover they are not aware and trained of how to react to a Terrorist attack synonymous to 26/11!
Even if they are trained they still use riot-control helmets! And yes, their bulletproof vests are torn with the kevlar breastplates sticking out of the vests!
As for the sandbag posts ( or bunkers as the media choose to christen them! How many of them know the difference between a bunker and a post, God knows!) they are anything but safe for our police! As per a newspaper report, pests like mice and cockroaches have made these new posts their home!
(Good! Even if the government cannot rehabilitate the slum-dwellers atleast they do rehabilitate the gutter-dwellers!)
These little terrorists are now keeping the police-men busy! They have to face the butt of the SLRs and the lathi-charges inside the posts! Althought the BMC has promised to disinfect these posts who knows when that will happen?
Well, who can blame the poor police-men! I really pity them! They have to work through so many odd shifts!Keep the crime-rate below a level, protect the city and on top of that they are expected to combat terrorism?
In the police, I dare say, one man is forced to do the work of at least 5 people due to shortage of men!
And coming to the question of security, whatever happened to intelligence agencies? Have this politicians and police head honchos ever seen English movies based on the CIA or something? Whatever happened to good old electronic surveillance?
Are we even, 2 % of what they are as regards the level of intelligence?
Really do the politicians think that Sandbag posts and more number of police make a city secure? In fact they make the citizens feel insecure, like they are constantly under a threat!
One simple thing these guys have to understand!
What good is security inside your house when you have left the doors and wondows of your house wide open?
Is it really worth spending millions just to put up makeshift sandbag 'bunkers'or should they be spent on new equipment and most important, training!
Or how about increasing the salary of the poor chaps of the police department? I think that gesture is long overdue!
Come on, this is the least that the government can do for the cops! It would mean so much to them!
Think about this!
The only tragedy of being an Indian is that we need to be reminded by others of our shortcomings! Be it 1962 Himalayan Blunder, 1999 Kargil Intrusions, The numerous terror attacks and so on! And worst part is we never learn from our mistakes!
This work by Pranjal A. Wagh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
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I agree this -> Sandbag posts make the citizens feel insecure, like they are constantly under a threat.
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