Search the intended target : Dial M for blast
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 16 2011 -

Room M with the wall torn apart by the blast and people being verified - Pix :: TSE

Only three men injured, though one succumbed to the injuries later. So what is the big deal ?

Haven't there been other such instances where the toll on human lives have been far greater ?

This isn't the first time that Imphal has been rocked by bomb blast and one just has to count the number of times that bombs have been lobbed at the residence of a trader or a Government official.

When a car fitted bomb can be driven into the compound of the Raj Bhawan so non-chalantly and a scooter fitted bomb exploded in all its glory and fury at the high security Babupara, what is the big deal in a bomb exploding on the first floor of a hotel in the busy North AOC ?

When even hospitals are not spared, the discovery of a bomb at the casualty ward of RIMS being the latest example, what is there to be shocked over the explosion of a single bomb at a hotel which did not claim more than one human life ?

Moreover remember North AOC is the unofficial ISBT of Manipur, where people from different parts of the State and even outside make this their first stopping place, once inside Imphal, making anonymity the profile of everyone.

Perhaps the best place to get lost amongst the sea of unknown faces, which may include the well heeled man, the drug peddler, the commercial sex worker, the family man out on some work, the trader minding his business etc.

The observations here can only be some of the viable reasons for the ease with which some desperadoes managed to smuggle in bombs to a hotel located at North AOC.

This however cannot erase the uneasy thought that what happened in the evening of September 14 at the North AOC could be a pointer to something more sinister and bigger.

Some things just do not add up, the most damning being the failure to register the particulars of the occupant/s of Room M, where the bomb exploded.

Isn't it mandatory for all hotels in Imphal to register the names and other particulars of the boarders or lodgers, even if a said occupant may be a well known face to the hotel management ?

Aren't documents, such as an identity card issued by a competent authority, a driving license, pan card etc necessary when a guest checks in ?

Would the common man, the average Joey or Tomba and Chaoba store bombs in his or her room ?

The loose strings are too obvious for comfort and if all the tall talks of security measures taken up in Imphal have meant only deploying some foul mouthed, rude and rough cops on night duty on the streets, then a crash course on security related aspects may just be the right prescription.

The hotel proprietor has been taken into custody for questioning, as was reported in the September 15 edition of the newspapers. This however is not enough.

The police need to question some of the key functionaries of the hotel such as the Manager and if necessary even the bell boys or the helpers.

Apart from the routine and obvious questions as to how the bomb could have been smuggled in so easily to the hotel, it came too uncomfortably close to the bomb blast that rocked the hostel of the Autonomous District Council at Chingmeirong on September 13.

Prior to this, there was the Sangakpham bomb blast on August 1 and earlier still there was the bomb attack at the Khuman Lampak Youth Hostel, where the ADC members were then housed. This may just be a co-incidence, but the co-incidence is just too apparent to be dismissed easily.

In other words, all possible angles should be covered. Terrorism is very much a reality now in Manipur and compounding this is the growing culture of resorting to terror tactics by some groups in the name of fighting for a cause dear to the land and the people.

In other words, the terror activities are sought to be explained or justified in the name of the interest of a people or a group of people and compounding this is the growing tendency to view these assaults on the people along communal divide.

An inept Government, or rather an insensitive political leadership, has only made matter worse.

It was sheer providence that the bomb blast at the North AOC hotel did not claim multiple human lives, but this does not lessen the gravity of the situation.

What should be central to the investigation underway is to find an answer to the question of who the intended target of the bomb was.

Prima facie the bomb went off accidentally and hence the need to find out the intended target and in the target will lie the real picture as well as the bigger and more sinister story of the bomb.