It took just three months and a week for a repeat of terror killings in Hyderabad. Not just the inhabitants of that city, but also the citizens of the whole of India, can rightfully ask one question. What has happened since the Mecca Masjid blast, or what has not happened, for two coordinated blasts to take place again? And Hyderabad is not the only city that is the target for blast killings. It is not as if investigative agencies have a dearth of evidence to go on. Since 2004, in the whole world India has become the greatest sufferer of terrorist attacks within its own borders apart from Iraq. Lists of possible perpetrators —names of fundamentalist and extremist organizations, religious and political — have been repeated ad nauseam in the faint hope that citizens will believe that something will soon be done. This time too, three or four organizations, based in Bangladesh and Pakistan, have been named, with one hot favourite among them. How has that ever helped? The Mecca Masjid blast took place in May. A special team from the Central Bureau of Investigation took charge of the inquiry in the second week of June. People last heard of the investigation in early July when an Inter-Services Intelligence courier was reportedly arrested because he was suspected to be in touch with the alleged mastermind behind the blast, who once lived in Bangladesh and then, reportedly, shifted to Pakistan. There has been silence after this.

The progress of an investigation cannot be revealed because this is a matter of high security. But the culmination of inquiries can and should be revealed, when the end does come. The frightening thing is that against the reported 3,674 lives lost in terrorist strikes in India since 2004, there is very little, if anything at all, to show. That is why, again, ordinary people out to relax at the end of the week have been murdered without a thought. Does it matter to any one of those families, which now confront a sudden, bloodied emptiness, where the killers come from? It should be enough that they operate intimately among their victims, within the borders of the country, leaving their traces in all the cities that they target. Just saying repeatedly that they cannot destroy the fabric of democracy or the environment of peace is meaningless. The administration can make this good only by matching the courage of ordinary people to demonstrate unambiguously that no murderer, whatever his or her affiliation, will be allowed to get away.