While profiling of any community is bad, it should equally be imprudent to profile one for being a permanent victim. In the business of democratic, secular, one-law-for-all system of governance, all citizens and communities must be equal and innocent unless proven otherwise. Or let me put it even more simply: just because you cannot simply presume a person to be a terrorist because he belongs to a particular community, you cannot presume a suspect to be innocent just because he happens to come from %u2018a%u2019 particular community. The question the prime minister needs to ask/answer is, has his government %u2014 and, even more precisely, the political formulation that keeps it in power %u2014 been true to this test?
IT is a cruel question to ask a government which has a record of complete, total, %u2018spotless%u2019 failure in cracking any of the major terrorist attacks that have taken place on its watch in three full years. Not in one single case %u2014 most significant of which, of course, is the Mumbai train bombings %u2014 has this government been able to catch any suspects and charge them. Even by the usually dismal standards of Indian policing, this record is remarkable. Terror attacks in Malegaon, Jama Masjid in Delhi, Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, Ayodhya, Samjhauta Express, Sankat Mochan Mandir in Varanasi, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Sarojini Nagar in New Delhi have all gone fully unreso
