Indian Officials Response To Attacks Denounced

This news updete by www.thearynews.com



NEW DELHI: Indian newspapers on Saturday lambasted security chiefs and politicians for a panicked and selfish response to the Mumbai terror attacks.

They accused government agencies and elected officials of refusing to accept responsibility for the failure to prevent the carnage and of competing to claim credit for successes even while troops were still fighting to rescue hostages.

Under the headline "Deadly Confusion", the Indian Express was appalled to see secret service commandos "wheeled out in front of the cameras before the operation of which they were technically a part had even been completed".

The paper attacked "credit-grabbing press conferences, and attempts by all the services to get in a word with the media while the National Security Guard was still mopping up resistance".

"There was no single command structure for the operations being conducted," it said, adding that the costs of delays "could be measured in lives".

The Hindustan Times predicted that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's calls for immediate action improving India's anti-terror measures would likely set off a "talk-cycle" that would result only in the usual official apathy.

"A first test will be whether any official suffers because of what has happened in Mumbai," it said in its editorial. "A second one is constant review.

"Countries with successful counter-terrorism policies like the US and Israel... hunt for new ideas, try to predict the future, check and recheck their existing systems."

The Asian Age lamented India's lack of organisation, saying that "unlike America and Europe, we simply do not possess cohesive social and political systems, and a work culture that is tidy, efficient and prompt".

"The guys in the frontline do themselves credit, the chaps at the top fail in their jobs," said the Business Standard. "Innocent citizens pay the price."

In a bitter comment piece, The Times of India beseeched the country's leaders to "wake up to the enormity of the challenge and act now".

"We have had enough of piecemeal action and ineffective rhetoric," it said.

Chaotic and contradictory briefings have been held in front of the hotels captured by the militants, while one state minister was accused of giving away crucial information about commando deployments on live television.

The Mail Today said politicians' handling of the terrorist threat had been "abysmal" and their appearances on television as troops fought deadly battles to save hostages' lives was "revolting".

On Saturday, the capital area of New Delhi was holding state elections, with the polls seen as a key political indicator ahead of national elections due by May next year.

The opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been citing the attacks as proof that Singh's governing Congress party is weak on terrorism.



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