30 August,2010 08:18 AM IST | | J Dey
The ghost of the Mumbai terror attacks continues to haunt the state. Hundreds of work hours across Maharashtra are lost in meetings. Meetings are held on any and every agenda under the sun.
New command structures have been created and offices redesigned. Officers have been promoted to fill vacant posts and, in their place, deputies have been nominated.
Almost all senior police officers in Mumbai are spending hundreds of hours every month in meetings, discussing unsolved crime cases of the past, coming up with justifications for the nakabandis, and on goes a long list.
With hundreds of committees and sub-committees being formed to discuss security issues, chai and biscuit manufactures are getting good business. Moreover, additional people have been employed to serve the chai and biscuits. In fact, now, their job description has been expanded to include arranging chairs for the all-important meetings.
The meetings are not restricted to senior cops. Dozens of meetings are held with ministers at their bungalows or at Mantralaya.
Meetings have not only become the favourite pastime of top cops, but defence officers too. In the past 18 months, the Navy and Coast Guard have changed their command structures. Captains have been promoted to the rank of admirals or vice admirals so they can occupy new offices.
Yet, very little could prevent a ship colliding into MSC Chitra on the mouth of Mumbai harbour, blocking maritime activities for weeks. Nobody really knows what the cargo of the missing containers carries. The port trust held hundreds of meetings. They still have not tallied the list of cargo declared by agents.
Hundreds of intelligence inputs have been generated in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks and mock drills have been conducted again and again. It is now believed that the assailants will follow the same tactics and route to carry out another attack. It looks like the committees are playing some mental games. Problems are magically solved within the pages of the files they carry.
The man in the street is hardly aware of what happens in these classified meetings. On the surface every thing seems normal, except a little inconvenience due to the nakabandis and mock drills.
But then again, one might say that lions don't hold meetings and sharks don't make lists.
