How many more Black Fridays ?

Saw the movie Black Friday couple of weeks back.According to the filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, the movie is a reproduction of a book by the same name from Hussain Zaidi. Apparently the books draws details from CBI/police records and the does not have inputs from the accused .I liked the movie for it seemed to put up the facts without giving an impression of taking sides and makes you think. Although some people I watched the movie with didn't seem to agree and felt that the movie was trying to justify the motive behind the blasts. In my view, it only puts in perspective the reasons quoted (however foolish/unreasonable it may seem) by the accused behind carrying out such a dastardly act.There is no question that violence of this kind can be justified.While those involved in the crime justify the blasts as a revenge for communal riots and a preceding event which triggered the riots, killings innocent people is inhumane. The high point of the film is a dialogue by Kay Kay Menon's character, where he says that people become chutiya(apologies for the profanity...but in usual parlance it's just a strong word for stupid) in the name of religion. It's puzzling how a person can be brainwashed and provoked to an extent of mercilessly killing a fellow human being.
Just a couple of days back, it was the fifth anniversary of the Godhra incident and the carnage that followed. It's disturbing to see the stories of countless orphan kids, widows whose lives got changed forever for worse just because some religious fanatics thought massacre was the only way to prove a point. Again a case of people trying to justify one wrong by quoting another wrong.
In each of the cases starting from 1992 to 2002, negligence and to a certain degree complicity by those who could prevent things from escalating (read police, politicians, bureaucrats) seems to be a major cause for such colossal human loss.Had there been a historical precedence of firm action and stringent punishments for those involved in communal riots a many of these riots could have been easily avoided.
Some might say it's easy to talk about secular values when one is not at the receiving end or the victim, but I'm sure apart for a very few people (irrespective of the religious beliefs) most of us would agree that killing Innocent people as a punishment for the crimes committed by a deranged gang of fundamentalists (from any religion) is simply irrational.

Anurag Kashyap, rightly closes his movie with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind".

Sadly though, in the seemingly unending war between the saffron and the green, a lot of red flows on the streets ......