Wednesday, November 23, 2011
USD 10 Million to accommodate a terrorist?
Today's Times of India says that the Indian government spent almost 50 crore (approx USD 10 Million) on Ajmal Kassab, the jailed terrorist, who was captured in action, during the deadly terror attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008. The question is who does one blame for this high expense, which is an extravagance, when compared to Indian incomes and living standards? or do we really blame anyone? India is a democracy, with very high influence of bureaucracy. The officers are probably just following Standard Operating Procedures without thinking through how much it is really costing. Or perhaps, which I suspect, they don't even have a defined SOP and/or law to handle people like Kassab, which would then call for decisions to be made at every juncture and bureaucratic decisions are always very expensive, hence inflating the cost. In either care, the situation calls for a need to have laws and develop new standard operating processes to handle such criminals. Then again, India is an example of democracy without responsibility. So, when an act (law and SOP) is proposed, it will be debated from various angles and amended and re-amended so that by the time it is passed, it is either toothless and expensive or open to abuse, like what happened with POTA, which was being abused by the politicians, who used it to meet their political agenda rather than national security.
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