Forget mock drills, in the wake of recent blasts,one hoax email with hint of a live bomb is enough for the cops, investigating agencies and even media to set out on a wild goose chase. The other day, Kolkata was declared to be next target of terror attacks by all news channels. The news set fear bombs ticking. For a change all police personnel hit the road and stopped cars for reasons other than collecting bribes. The email had given a car number plate details and it took few hours to figure out that it belonged to one of the state ministers and the email was a hoax.

Needless to say this shows how transport, traffic and police departments work. There are no centralized records on anything. Kolkata, I guess, has one of the highest numbers of illegal vehicles which include cars, jeeps, autos, rickshaws and all possible modes of transports. Even the new executive transport buses (Whiteliners), plying on roads for more than 2 years, didn’t have papers in order and had to stop their services couple of weeks ago.

Indian cities no doubt have become haven for all kinds of illegal activities. Money being the best lubricant, even criminals can bribe their way and have a small scale bomb manufacturing unit. Presence and network of terrorist groups thriving here, who left live bombs everywhere come as no surprise. Check posts don’t check. Cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Surat are densely populated. It’ll indeed be wild wild goose chase before they can even find the shadow of people who disappear in the crowd after smoothly planting a live bomb bang right at the centre of crowded places.

Gujarat CM, Narendra Modi’s reward scheme to nab terrorists is a good option. I am sure even policemen are working overtime now. But it is too late. Administration should have tightened their belts long time back. But in a country which has elected MPs with criminal records, we can’t point fingers at anyone except ourselves.

Citizens of India become citizen journalists, become activists, don black glasses and even become citizen investigators and join the wild goose chase – after we are soft targets of all these bombs.