Gone really wrong

This refers to your editorial, ‘Gone rogue’. Our minority affairs minister A.R. Antulay has done something very wrong.

• This refers to your editorial, ‘Gone rogue’. Our minority affairs minister A.R. Antulay has done something very wrong. When alive, Hemant Karkare was a target of Hindu hardliners. Now, even after he sacrificed his life for the nation, we don’t let him rest in peace. Let’s, besides, spare a thought for the ace officer’s bereaved family.

The larger fallout is even more serious. This irresponsible comment from the minister is a great setback to the country’s diplomatic efforts at this juncture, which has weakened the pressure that is on Pakistan. Such comments will definitely hurt not just Karkare’s family, but the very idea of India.

— Sunil Dogra

New Delhi

Seditious say

• The insinuations embedded in A.R. Antulay’s comments have occasioned strong reactions all over. Tavleen Singh even demanded from a “weak government” A.R. Antulay’s scalp or, rather, his trial for sedition. We may recall that, for a much more serious charge concerning the deaths of innocent non-Sikh Indians by Bhindranwale, a “strong

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government” of Indira Gandhi could do little, leave alone a trial for sedition. The rest is history.

— Mukund B. Kunte

Delhi

Much ado

• Every government needs to make stringent laws. But the proper implementation of those laws is also important. Mere pronouncements won’t help tackle techno-savvy terrorism. Prior to the Mumbai attacks, the UPA government had been soft on terror and refused to make an adequate law. It got rid of POTA. TADA had gone long before that.

But now, the UPA has come round to enacting exactly the kind of law it had rejected for so long.

One wonders if a lot of time, money and lives couldn’t have been saved by merely ensuring the exercise of a law like POTA, but within bounds — with proper safeguards against its abuse. With the UPA’s new law, we seem to have taken a very roundabout way to our predetermined destination.

— Anuvrat Arya

New Delhi

Shoe-gate

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• The Iraqi journalist throwing his shoes at President Bush was silly and immature. A journalist has the biggest weapon in his hands, his pen. He uses words like cement and mortar to build institutions and personalities, or like a hammer to break them. Why use shoes?

Anybody in the world can chuck a shoe at anyone, provided he has shoes to spare. This man is no journalist.

The journalist should have tried to throw his shoes at Saddam Hussein too, when so many Iraqis disagreed with his methods of handling protests. If he had done so, the journalist could not have returned home for supper.

— Rajendra K. Aneja

Delhi