Sunday, March 20 2005 20:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Life in Bangalore has always been peaceful, devoid of threats, calamities and horrifying incidents (Touch wood).

Well now, it seems that the 'desi' Silicon Valley has become the next target of the terrorists.

The first thing, which comes to, our mind is of what's the mystery behind those hoax calls, which are popping up every now and then.

Police last week received an anonymous call that a bomb had been planted at campus of software major Infosys. The immediate reaction was that there were police on the spot, bomb squads and sniffer dogs on its mission to solve the mystery, which within hours turned out to be a hoax.

The same incident befell another software major Wipro in Bangalore which also turned out to be a hoax. A Wipro employee was arrested within hours of the incident by the police who reportedly told the cops that he made the call to test the security preparedness of the software companies.

So what' next?

This was in the backdrop of all intelligence reports and investigation concluded by the police that that there was a serious perception threat by Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants to attack software units in the city. But how far is this a gospel truth?

When looked into the Bangalore office of New York-listed Wipro, which has about 35,000 employees, declined to comment.

"We are confident that no bomb can be planted in our premises, given the high degree of physical security we have in place at our facilities, but we also can't take risks and deny the police the right to investigate the premises," an official was quoted saying.

"An attack on any of the multinational tech firms in Bangalore could close down large parts of the city and get global attention," says Paul Ingram, a Bangalore-based manager for Hill.

Bangalore, which is home to nearly 1,500 tech companies and some 200,000 of their employees, and which accounts for 40 per cent of India's IT revenues can't depend on bold declarations and assurances by the Govt.

Do you think that the rhetoric by the Govt of K'taka declaring, "We assure security to all IT firms" might really gift people a peaceful breath?

Those IT firms, which have come up through with years of toil, pain, hard work, and of course, billions of crores invested really find hard it to breathe. God knows how their founders are still closing their eyes in peace, I doubt.

But one still awaits to see of what exactly is the hell behind this, Only the assurance given by the Govt, or a bold declaration that 'I did it' will not relieve one out of his fears, one really needs to hold his breath tight unless and until it is proved that it is 'Just a hoax'

We expect the Govt to take concerted measures to look into these matters damn seriously, and take up measures, which might solve these entire hoax problems and put a full stop to this.

So whole of Bangalore City awaits for the full Big Stop.

Is Dharam Singh, the Chief Minister listening?!