This reflects a genuine confusion, strategic and tactical. Tactically, there was no single command structure for the operations being conducted since Wednesday night; this led to delays, crossed connections and redundancies, the cost of each of which could be measured in lives. The army, the navy and the police were running chains of command parallel to the NSG. Strategically, the security of the harbour, India’s territorial waters and the coastline is divided up between the Customs, woefully under-weaponed; the Coast Guard, always smarting under what it sees as stepmotherly treatment and with designs on being a brown-water force; and the navy. Through the gaps in this structure the terrorists may have sailed to Colaba, making landfall dangerously close to the navy’s sheathed sword, the submarines of Western Command. In 1993, there was an outcry when 800 kg of RDX landed on the Indian coast and destabilised Mumbai. What’s changed since then? And who’s accountable if it hasn’t? 

Secure our Security
- Editorial Times of India 

On November 24, defence minister A K Antony told a public gathering in Kochi that our land borders are secure but not the seas. His words turned out to be, unfortunately, prophetic. Intelligence reports suggest that the perpetrators of the terror operation in Mumbai came from the sea. In all probability, they sailed past the naval headquarters before running amok in the city. How did terrorists at least 20 of them seem to have come in rubber dinghies evade the entire security establishment?

there is an urgent need for better coordination among various intelligence agencies and with the armed forces. This, however, is possible only if we have a major revamp of our security architecture. Many experts have outlined structural changes in the security establishment, like creating a federal agency, a centralised command structure and a nationwide information base with real-time access to security agencies. Besides, various wings of the security establishment have to be made autonomous and accountable.

This country has witnessed scores of terror strikes since the 1980s and in the past three years alone, over 800 people have died in terror attacks. But not one public official in India has had to resign after a terror strike. Should security bosses, including the home minister, national security adviser and heads of agencies like RAW and IB, be so secure in their jobs when security personnel and civilians risk lives for their failures?

Support cops, win terror war
- Arun Bothra The Statesman
(An IPS officer who works with the Orissa Police’s anti-terrorist wing)

The Mumbai mayhem has underlined the unpreparedness of our police forces once again. Wednesday, 26 November, was yet another day when the world saw how helpless our police are when faced with a full-fledged war against terror. At the onset of the crisis, the Mumbai police, like the city itself, appeared shaken. Only with the arrival of its anti-terrorist squad and later commandos from various specialised units, did the operation take shape.

Though badly prepared, the police were not short of initiative and valour. Constables and head constables reacted swiftly and saved numerous lives. In the process, at least 14 policemen died. Two IPS officers, including the chief of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), Hemant Karkare, were among them. This display of courage must have reassured people who saw ill-equipped policemen taking on well-trained fidayeen terrorists. Sadly their sacrifice was not sufficient to stop the terror that has already killed 155 people.

The rapid growth of the terror network has surprised security agencies. They are facing sophisticated and tech-savvy terrorist groups. In comparison, capacity-building in the security set-up has been inadequate. As a result, only the motivation of officers like Karkare can be depended upon. It is important that in the war against terror, the police must get full support from the public.

There is a general feeling that the police have been denied resources, appreciation and, most importantly, dignity. Karkare and Sharma, both officers who showed extreme courage and professional capability, symbolise the irony of Indian policing. Our police can win the war against terror if they are given support and protection, both physical and moral. At the moment they lack both.

‘My city was attacked because of its wealth’
- Suketu Mehta - Hindustan Times
(Author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found and a Professor of Journalism at New York University

In 1999, I was interviewing a young Muslim man whose family had been attacked by Hindu rioters, and who had subsequently joined the Muslim underworld. He told me about the coming worldwide war of Islam against its enemies, and its local manifestation in Bombay. “This time we will be fully prepared. We have all the equipment. The bhais (dons) will send ships with containers full of weapons.” I asked the gangster why he stayed in Bombay, if he thought it was so bad for Muslims. He peered out the one window at the grey and white walls of the Taj, and remarked: “The main thing in Bombay is money. There’s lots of it.”

And this, when all is said and done, is why the terrorists keep attacking Bombay, and picked the top business hotel of this most commercial of cities to stage their spectacular: it is where money is made. Lots of it.