By Laila Sohail

Saturday, 13th December – 2008

The Mumbai blasts on the 26th of Nov 08 sent panic waves across India. The three day melodrama and carelessly engineered scheme lead to the most preposterous allegations that blame game history has revealed.

The Indian media had passed its judgment within only a couple of hours into the attack. It was convinced that 10 men had taken a cruise from Karachi to Mumbai, fully equipped with ammunition and explosive material, bypassed the Coast Guard, and made their way into the heart of the city. One of the reports had a fisherman claiming that he had himself questioned one of the terrorists, after seeing the explosives in the bag. It is a wonder how the reporter could keep a straight face as this fisherman armed with a fishing line in one hand and a net in the other, claimed to be nothing short of Superman, while the terrorist responsible for killing so many people was meek enough to simply continue the remaining journey on foot. Within minutes, they had an animation/carton film to depict his tale. While flipping news channels, I came across a film trailer, and I said to myself, damn that Ram Gopal Warma, he does not give up making atrocious Hollywood rip off suspense thrillers…only it wasn’t a trailer, but a documentary on one of the Indian channels, complete with music effects. Still, the Indian Media’s propaganda has been rather rusty. The channels could not decide on the number of the terrorists, which ranged from 9 to 15, or the name of the mastermind [Kamal, Qasab or Rahman chacha being some of the options} There was ambiguity about whether the terrorists had spent a night in some hotel, or come right before the attacks. The channels made a mockery out of this tragedy. (more…)