The recent serial bomb blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, and the discovery of numerous unexploded devices in Surat, have become a big tamasha for people. When an unexploded bomb is discovered, large, curious crowds gather as if a street play is on. In Bangalore, when an unexploded bomb was discovered on Saturday, people on foot and two-wheelers tried every trick to get closer and see how it was defused. This particular bomb, it seems, was actually placed on Thursday night. It was “discovered” by a pavement shopkeeper, who began to use it as a stool! We Indians will take anything that is free.

In Surat, when unexploded bombs were being found one after another on Monday and Tuesday, curious onlookers stood nonchalantly, watching the whole thing as if it were a Russian circus. Now, terrorists plant and explode bombs to terrorise people. What if people are not terrorised? What if they stop fearing the bombs, as it appears to be happening? The terrorists may have miscalculated when they began to plant bomb after bomb. After some time, people begin to accept the fact, and get on with their lives. That’s why, on Sunday, I and my family went to see a movie cheerfully. The movie theatre was nearly packed, suggesting people were no longer afraid. There was some panic, however, on Monday after a hoax bomb call in a local school, but that appears to have been a small blip.

I was also amazed to read how police and bomb disposal experts who arrived to check a car in Surat left their fingerprints all over, obliterating the fingerprints left behind by the terrorists. Indian policemen are so ill-equipped that they don’t even have a pair of rubber gloves with them when they reach a crime scene.

Now that daring terrorists are taunting the Indian government, there is once again demand for a national agency to deal with terrorism. This Congress government, busy with its do-or-die nuclear deal, can hardly be expected to come up with measures that will quell the terrorists. If setting up a new agency is difficult and time-consuming, the government can beef up the CBI by giving it an anti-terror wing. In the United States, the FBI handles all federal crimes, including terrorism.