The Pune terrorist incident: an adequate response from Osho resort?
As soon as the German Bakery was blown up, surely the Osho Resort should have gone into total lock down. After all, it became increasingly evident over the preceding weeks and months that the resort was also a major target. Unless the management somehow intuitively knew that there would be only one terrorist incident that night, their conduct is decidedly questionable.
The management claimed to have taken all necessary measures to ensure the safety of visitors. The management also repeatedly claims that it was not targeted as, unlike the German Bakery, it is not a soft target. I beg to differ. Swami Headley, a new Osho disciple, has pleaded guilty to the planning phase of the Mumbai siege. (He did this for two reasons. Firstly to avoid the death penalty, and secondly to avoid being extradited to India). The Mumbai siege was carried out by a team of highly trained militants. Do you really think that the Osho Resort is a hard target?
The safety of all in White-Robe should have been a top priority. Yet I hear that the guard at main-gate did not want to interrupt White-Robe. Was at least some pre-planned measures swiftly enacted – perhaps armed guards at the entrances of the Auditorium? Dhyanesh is the security manager. Was he too busy in the Auditorium trying to kick out a person that might have secretly let out a little sneeze? Surely he should have been immediately pulled out of White-Robe to co-ordinate the response.
People who ferried the dead and injured to hospital were clearly also doing so under great duress and courage. Obviously there was a potential for further attack. Pakistan militants have a liking to also kill more targets as the injured and their carers and relatives reach the hospital.
The absurdity is further deepened by visitors to the resort partying into the night blissfully unaware of the happenings down the road. Surely, with the potential for an attack, to carry on a disco is in brazen ignorance of that distinctly possible threat. To not put the place in lock-down, and on the contrary to have a disco party, is to put the lives of the people at the resort at risk. To not inform resort visitors of the German Bakery blast is to also leave people at risk when they leave the resort. For sure you can say people have the right to exercise their own level of caution outside the resort, but to not inform them takes this right away. Many resort goers wandered out of the resort that night, completely unaware of the possibly danger of further attacks. This is reprehensible.
To make matters worse, we have an Osho sannyasin simply wanting to inform the disco goers of what has happened, yet this person was ridiculed and banned from the resort for a year. On the surface of things I almost want to believe that this just could not be. Yet the resort management has acted in such an ignorant manner that I am willing to consider the possibility of this scenario having been played out exactly as represented on Osho sannyasin websites.
Do you trust the resort when they say that they have made adequate security preparations? Certainly I do not. Do you think the threat has now dissipated? The resort is not only at loggerheads with the majority of the Osho sannyasin movement (excluding the new recruits gathered into the fold from a slippery advertising campaign). The resort also has the long time residents of Koregaon Park growing in opposition to them. Furthermore, under the strict guidance of a few Western style power brokers (that have removed all other original Inner-Circle members that had the courage to differ), the resort has become the epitome of Western opulence; for this it not only has the Indian flavour of Osho’s spirituality to contend with, but now also Islamic extremism. The model of ‘Resort’ is acutely designed to attract terrorists. Well done I say on that count, and well done on your abysmal response to the first serious threat.
The central argument seems to be that the resort management have lost their heart. I beg to differ. They have lost their head. Are you willing to invest your life, your friends’ lives, or fellow travellers lives, in the resort’s highly acclaimed inability to ensure the safety of its visitors?
The threat still exists. The militants in Karachi that have viewed video footage of the resort are still roaming free. Headley has presumably carried out and disseminated the surveillance details necessary for a significant attack in Pune. Also, it makes no sense that he and his band of highly trained militants only managed to blow up a back-pack at the German Bakery. It hardly compares to the Mumbai siege.
The resort management is continuing on its merry way of arrogant self-righteousness that they have somehow justified in their minds to be acting in strict accordance with the scriptures of Osho. Doing so, they will continue to invite confrontation. The threat has now been demonstrated to be deadly in significance. The management has demonstrated an inability to adequately respond in the face of such a serious threat.
The primary general response from resort management was to diminish the significance of the act (and the bakery). This distancing is symptomatic of a deep denial. Ironically their main interpersonal response is to say that ‘you are in shock’. From what I have read, though many people may have been in shock (it would seem almost psychopathic or inhumane not to be, at least to some extent), they have acted in an intelligent and humane manner. Hence despite their shock they were able to respond to the situation at hand. The management at the resort was unable to respond effectively, and has grown over the years into a long-term denial of reality.
It is persistently asked whether or not you would entrust Osho’s legacy to the current authorities. I also ask, would you entrust your life (and others lives) to these authorities?
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