Assessing Preparedness And Risks Of Terror & Nuclear Threats

The hysteria was palpable, the fear was real, and the sense of doom was all around us in the city earlier this month as the India-Pakistan hostilities escalated. Can Mumbai be bombed? Will the city survive any attack? Is there an escape from a nuclear strike? and other such questions dominated conversations. Chats and WhatsApp groups were abuzz with instructions on how to save oneself in case of an attack from across the border and what to do in case of a nuclear strike.

Housing societies of the middle and upper-middle classes conducted their own safety drills to match the mock actions by the government and other agencies. Most Mumbaikars went about their days with tell-tale streaks of tension lining their faces, except the slum dwellers, who make up about half the city’s population, the outdoor workers, and the delivery executives for whom the city has hardly offered safety.

This is a city in which people routinely lose their lives climbing up on scaffoldings without harnesses, going down into sewer drains without any safety gear, boarding local trains, driving over a pothole on ill-maintained roads or simply walking on a street because it does not have walkable pavements.

In case of cross-border hostilities or a war, beyond the platitudes and the drills, almost everyone knows the truth—Mumbai is a strategic target, and, if it is hit, there’s very little that anyone living here can do other than contain the damage and count the dead. Let’s be honest. Mumbai was not planned or built to withstand a war or even bomb blasts. We have basements to park cars here, not bunkers to save ourselves in case of conventional or unconventional attacks. To even plan for bunkers would mean counting real estate loss. It is that kind of a city.

Journalists who went to the border cities and towns like Poonch, Rajouri, and Amritsar during the India-Pakistan hostilities for the first time were surprised to see how many homes and compounds had bunkers, how familiar it was even for children to be hustled into bunkers when there was cross-border shelling, how casually they spoke of keeping a bag packed with essentials, and how routine it was for everyone to know sirens and take precautionary measures. Mumbaikars have never had to factor any of that into their daily routines. And, as strategic experts would say in private, there is very little that we can do anyway.

What can be done was evident in early May—officials asked Mumbaikars to not panic and remain calm (yes, but how do we keep calm when a bomb might be coming our way?). And volunteers were trained to provide first aid (what first aid can be done in a nuclear strike?) and help evacuate civilians to safer areas (where are these anyway?). The ‘civil defence mock drill’ educated Mumbaikars on safety protocols, but it was more to showcase that there was something that could be done; in reality, little can be done.

Mumbai’s economic prowess and criticality to India, its strategic importance given the atomic power plant and other sensitive installations, its primacy of service industries, including the entertainment sector, its humungous civilian population that’s a major workforce and more make it a target. If you are a Mumbaikar by birth and this chaotic but warm city is home, there is nowhere to escape to in case of an attack. If you are a Mumbaikar by choice because you came chasing dreams, then you may still have a place to go and hide, if you want to.

For a moment, forget war. Haven’t we Mumbaikars been through targeted IED explosions, bomb blasts, and terror sieges earlier? Since the first deadly one on March 12, 1993, which shook the city out of its placid chaos after 13 targets were blasted in a span of less than 90 minutes, there have been as many as 13 more attacks on the city till 2011. These, in all, took the lives of more than 720 Mumbaikars and left nearly 2,400 injured. Many were traced back to across the border.

The deadliest one that’s often recalled is the 26/11 terror attack on November 26, 2008, in which at least 175 died at multiple locations. Equally damaging were the coordinated blasts on July 11, 2006, on the Western Railway suburban trains in the evening peak hours that left more dead—183 Mumbaikars getting back home from work. Even in the 26/11 attack, railway stations were hit. Even when the modus operandi of terrorists, funded from across the border, was known and preventive steps taken, all the hits could not be prevented.

Railway networks in major international cities are favoured targets of attackers during war or terror strikes. The 9/11 attacks in New York ended up causing severe damage to the city’s subway systems, including structural damage to three stations. Besides Mumbai, cities in the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Japan, Italy, Russia, Germany, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Angola, South Korea, and Colombia have all experienced terrorist attacks through explosions or hazardous gases on their railway networks.

The Indian defence forces striking terrorist camps and networks across the border this month may have brought vicarious satisfaction to many a Mumbaikar, but it also likely brought the city into the muzzle of an intended full-scale attack. When India’s conflict with Pakistan, which foreign secretary Vikram Misri took pains to clarify was in the conventional domain with no nuclear signalling, can escalate is anybody’s guess. In the aftermath of the March 12 serial bomb blasts and the 26/11 attacks, India’s diplomats worked hard to isolate Pakistan in the international community and prevent another attack.

That, the prevention, remains Mumbai’s best defence to date because all preparation has severe limits. In this city, we live with multiple risks every day; this is one more, and it is perhaps the only way to be in Mumbai.

Smruti Koppikar, an award-winning senior journalist and urban chronicler, writes extensively on cities, development, gender, and the media. She is the Founder Editor of the award-winning online journal ‘Question of Cities’ and can be reached at [email protected].