It was past 8 pm, I wanted to see a movie with my wife at one of the malls in Saket - which is less than a couple of kilometers from the gate of our colony.
First I encountered a road block as soon as I got out of the colony gate in my car. There were armed cops at the road block and the traffic had to trickle through because of the bottle neck created by them. One vehicle at a time - the tail of the traffic must have been about a kilometer long. The cops had detained a couple of motorbikes on the side and were apparently checking their papers, and maybe pocketing some small denomination currency notes.
After considerable delay we reached the approach road behind the malls. Right in the middle of the road, there was a structure like a pill box, apparently made of sand bags and covered with a green sheet of camouflage fabric. Propped up in the 'pill box' I could see a cop or or an army jawan who had his automatic rifle trained towards the traffic. Two more khaki uniformed men were checking the vehicles - getting the boot and the bonnet opened. Am not sure what they hoped to find.
Finally reached the entrance of the mall's underground parking. I had to open the bonnet and the boot again. One guard with a flashlight asked my wife to open the glove compartment, he shone his flashlight in that. He also scanned the rest of the car interior with his flashlight. Then we were asked to move on.
After getting off the car we had to enter the mall by an elevator - before entering the elevator we were made to pass through a metal sensor doorway, we were scanned by a metal detector (body scan). That too did not seem enough. We were frisked bodily by the private security agents at this point. My wife was asked to open her handbag and the female security guard peeped in rummaged the contents with her bare hands.
We went to the 2nd floor which had the ticket counter to the movie theater, got our tickets and we were once again frisked by metal detectors and body search by frisking. The security guard could feel a container in my coat pocket - which was the case for my spectacles. He asked me to take it out and show it him.
This is the life of a citizen in this free country in its capital city. You can imagine what it might be for a less privileged citizen.
The extremists/terrorists have succeeded in holding the entire country to ransom - just think about it.
Note: This was a normal day - no high alerts. If a guard does notice a bomb or a gun and does face an actual terrorist. What will be his reaction? He either gets some greenbacks OR a bullet through him....
After considerable delay we reached the approach road behind the malls. Right in the middle of the road, there was a structure like a pill box, apparently made of sand bags and covered with a green sheet of camouflage fabric. Propped up in the 'pill box' I could see a cop or or an army jawan who had his automatic rifle trained towards the traffic. Two more khaki uniformed men were checking the vehicles - getting the boot and the bonnet opened. Am not sure what they hoped to find.
Finally reached the entrance of the mall's underground parking. I had to open the bonnet and the boot again. One guard with a flashlight asked my wife to open the glove compartment, he shone his flashlight in that. He also scanned the rest of the car interior with his flashlight. Then we were asked to move on.After getting off the car we had to enter the mall by an elevator - before entering the elevator we were made to pass through a metal sensor doorway, we were scanned by a metal detector (body scan). That too did not seem enough. We were frisked bodily by the private security agents at this point. My wife was asked to open her handbag and the female security guard peeped in rummaged the contents with her bare hands.
We went to the 2nd floor which had the ticket counter to the movie theater, got our tickets and we were once again frisked by metal detectors and body search by frisking. The security guard could feel a container in my coat pocket - which was the case for my spectacles. He asked me to take it out and show it him.
This is the life of a citizen in this free country in its capital city. You can imagine what it might be for a less privileged citizen.
The extremists/terrorists have succeeded in holding the entire country to ransom - just think about it.
Note: This was a normal day - no high alerts. If a guard does notice a bomb or a gun and does face an actual terrorist. What will be his reaction? He either gets some greenbacks OR a bullet through him....
