It was about two years ago that the engineering marvel that is the Bandra-Worli Sea Link was thrown open to Mumbaikars. It is also more than two years since Mumbai’s then police chief, D Sivanandhan, realised that the Rs1,634 crore structure was a potential target for a spectacular terror attack and wrote several letters to the state government urging it to set up modern security systems for the bridge.
Unfortunately, there is still no proper security system in place to guard the sea link. That nothing has happened is all the more galling as the former commissioner had even spelt out the risks and solutions clearly. He had discussed the possibility of terrorists using vehicles laden with explosives to destroy the structure and sought funds to beef up security with mobile, gantry-based explosive scanners at both ends of the bridge. Apart from scanners, he had demanded that control rooms be set up at both ends of the sea link, speedboats be deployed in the waters around it, and floating jetties be installed.
Last year, the day US President Barak Obama landed in Mumbai, a man jumped off the sea link and committed suicide. This would have been considered a huge security breach in any other place, but not in Mumbai. The police and the government simply ignored the incident. Last Saturday, a 23-year-old woman tried to do the same but was saved. Shockingly, she had simply entered the sea link from the Worli end without anyone stopping her, though pedestrians are not allowed on the bridge. That it happened in the middle of the night is no excuse.
Overtwo years on, the state is yet to decide if the second phase of the sea link is to be constructed. But more frustrating are the lapses in security and flouting of laws on the existing bridge.
Saturday’s incident should be seen as a warning. The city’s custodians should sit up and take note of the enormity of the threat to Mumbai’s latest icon. There is no point crying afterwards.
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