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We are at a stage that jargonists would call an 'inflexion point' -- a point at which a curve on a graph makes a significant move upwards or downwards. The vulnerability exposed by India's business capital can change the way the world leads life.
This column is not a critique of 'intelligence failure' and how the attacks could have been prevented. It is about how easy it is to plan and execute such attacks, and how much this can change the rules of conducting business from now on.
The attack on the Twin Towers in New York City in 2001 exposed how lethal an airplane can be in the hands of a terrorist. The planes that rammed into and brought the towers down had been hijacked, not to hold passengers to ransom, but to use the airplanes as deadly missiles.
That one event changed the way we travel. We learnt to live with all other inconveniences and hardships it entailed -- taking belts and shoes off at every transit security point, random searches of carry-on bags, leaving checked-in baggage unlocked, checking in laptops, and even learning to sit still and not appear restless before take-off for fear of making others nervous and facing an offloading. When the threat perception of liquids and gels developed, we learnt to travel without them.
Last week's developments have shown that a hotel room can be as deadly in the hands of a terrorist as an airplane. Besides, it is a much cheaper alternative. When you enter a hotel today, you walk through a metal detector, but your baggage would be delivered to your room with no screening whatsoever.
Therefore, while a human bomb cannot walk into a hotel, caskets of grenades can be packed in Louis Vuitton bags and stored in a room without a doubt.
In a busy New York hotel, it is eminently feasible to check in and check out of the hotel without having to speak to a single staff member of the hotel -- one could use check-in kiosks and carry up the baggage oneself.
Some New York hotels ask you to display your plastic room key to enter the lobby after evening. All a terrorist needs for access is to pay for a single room night and keep the key for perpetual access to the lobby.
Support functions in hotels are outsourced -- most importantly, housekeeping. Infiltration of an outsourced agency could give terrorists access to hotel premises and draw up blueprints.
Moreover, hotels also do not have area access controls such as the ones implemented in securities firms. In the hospitality industry, it is common for guests to share their tales of woe to bartenders, coffee shop personnel, room service attendants and chefs and get friendly.
It is not uncommon for friendly guests to be given a peek into the kitchen to get a sense of the tiresome effort behind the grandeur and the hospitality. A terrorist could get friendly and even video the back areas like the Japanese tourists picture every step of their movements on holidays.
Last week threatens to change everything. Hotels could start looking more like airports. It could become mandatory for them to screen baggage through x-ray machines. The ever-smiling security guard who never forces the snooty guest to walk through the metal detector may now be forced to get insistent.
Access to the kitchen would get biometric-password protected, and chatting with the chef may not be possible with the same ease again. The hotel concierge will stop accepting baggage for storage while you go in for a quick bite.
More importantly, it may become important for hotels to develop "know your client" requirements akin to banks and financial institutions to ensure that genteel guests are not terrorists in disguise. Access to rooms by visitors could require registration of information. In fact, guests may have to declare their income-tax permanent account numbers to book rooms.
Governments are prone to make new regulations to deal with every new problem, and the case for regulating safety standards in hotel security has never been more compelling. Even more compelling is the case for regulating the government in its reaction to such unpreventable disasters -- the security version of the Fiscal Responsibility Management Act.
The response time of the Indian state (be it at the federal level or the state level) has exposed how much of a "soft state" we are. The Union Home Minister did not have a watch when journalists asked him when the National Security Guard would reach Mumbai.
The NSG did not even have a waiting airplane to whisk the commandos to Mumbai. They took an antiquated plane that reached Mumbai eight hours after terrorists stormed into the Mumbai hotels. If this is the plight of the city that headquarters the financial sector regulators, represents the spirit of Indian enterprise, and pays the highest taxes, direct and indirect, to the nation, only God can keep this nation safe.
The author is a partner of JSA, Advocates & Solicitors. The views expressed herein are his own.
