How safe are the places of worship in India?

[Editor]

It was really shocking when a friend of mine told me that the militants have struck the Ayodhya Ram temple today morning. They were six heavily armed terrorists, disguised as devotees, who made an attempt to storm the high-security makeshift Ram temple and were killed before they could make it to the shrine.

Though it was confirmed that the pilgrims were safe and the temple area was not damaged, but four AK 47 and AK 56 rifles, some hand grenades and ammunition were recovered from the bodies of the slain militants.

This terrorist attack on the Ram temple will for sure evoke mixed responses. Some might say that this is just a one-off attack after 13 years of demolition of Babri mosque and is of no significant consequence. On the other hand, some people might have an opinion that this is just like a warning signal with other terrorist attacks in the line. My gutfeel on this issue is that this might be considered as a one-off incident, but this should not be overlooked as just another terrorist attack.

India is a land of temples or rather I should say that as our culture over the years has embraced religions of every type and as a result we can boast of diverse places of worship be it a temple, a mosque, or a church for that matter. There is huge number of devotees visiting different places of worship. Think for a moment that you plan to visit a temple, but this incident will force you to think twice as there will always be a danger of a terrorist attack lurking somewhere at the back of your mind. Then, there are also those firm believers who will not be perturbed by any kind of catastrophe. However, the life of these devotees is at stake. If the terrorists can disguise themselves as devotees, as they did today at the Ram temple, they can also disguise themselves as human bombs and create havoc at our places of worship.

This leads us to our gutfeel debate that ‘How safe are the places of worship in India?’ It might be a better idea to just remember the God ‘within’ and forget the places of worship…but more so this is unthinkable in Indian context with the kind of culture we have.

What is your gutfeel on the issue?