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India’s soft treatment to terrorists like Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru has just had another fallout: the Mumbai serial blasts of 13/7.

While India is spending crores to keep Kasab hale and hearty amid tight security cover every month and stalling (indefinitely) the hanging of Parliament attack accused Guru, it is also sending a message to the terror community at large: target the country and get away by just staying in jail.

At a time when India is becoming even more vulnerable to terrorist strikes, we have repealed the tough terror law known by the name Prevention of Terrorist Acts or POTA to show how great and humane we are, giving terror elements more legroom to operate in India.

Our government is all praise for the “resilience” of the Mumbaikar (which has literally become a cliché by now) and it seems to be leveraging on this cliché to conceal its shortcomings of not having a policy to deal with terror elements within as well as outside the country.

Now, the government should realise that Mumbaikars are crying hoarse saying, don’t call us resilient any more, do something about our safety. But the government still remains deaf.

Earlier, we had seen terrorists blackmail the government by kidnapping a minister’s kin – former Union home minister in the VP Singh government Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya, who was kidnapped by terrorists and released after five dreaded militants were freed from jail.

Again, another such incident where terrorists blackmailed India is the Kandahar hijacking when an Indian Airlines flight bound for Delhi from Kathmandu was hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan.

The hijackers demanded the release of Masood Azhar and two other dreaded militants Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar. The three were bartered to save the Indian Airlines passengers.

These incidents have failed to change the cavalier attitude of our governments and India still goes soft on terror.

In fact after every terrorist attack, especially on Mumbai, we see our politicians, sitting thousands of miles away, making political statements.

While home minister Chidambaram (heaving a sigh of relief) said that 13/7 was not an attack on India’s growth, Rahul Gandhi ill timed another child-like comment, stating it is impossible to prevent all attacks on Indian soil.

We’ve also seen the current government going all out to take credit for the lull in terror after the 26/11 attacks. Terror strikes in our country have been almost unabated till the 26/11 strikes, after which there has been a reprieve.

Why this reprieve? Well, one of our famous Bollywood stars (name withheld) had aptly pointed out that the 26/11 strikes received attention because the “rich and famous were affected.”

Yes, the strike on India’s wealthy, on foreign tourists, the Israel’s Rabbi and his wife along with the iconic Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai had given this incident world attention.

Also, by nabbing one of the terrorists (Kasab) alive, India apparently tried to prove to the world Pakistan’s role in 26/11.

Post 26/11, the US had taken a hard stand on Pakistan, telling the country to reign in on terror elements. Even the UAE felt a jolt and temporarily stopped harbouring Mumbai’s underworld (which has forged links with anti-India terror elements).

Had 26/11 been an attack on the common man, it would have been a forgotten story and Mumbai would have had to brace for its next attack, considering how resilient Mumbai is (as our politicians and even the Press would say).

Unlike 26/11, will the fire of the 13/7 serial blasts douse like any other terror strike or will the government conjure up some concrete terror plan that will send a message to the militants and its sponsors that we are not soft on terrorism?