FIRST Madrid, then London, now Bombay — terrorists have once again chosen to massacre innocent commuters. But why? What possible good could ever be achieved by slaughtering ordinary decent people as they go about their daily business? The hearts of the world have gone out to the citizens of Bombay to this act of horror. The agony of the relatives of the dead and maimed as they searched through the city’s many hospitals for news of their loved ones was evident from heart-breaking television pictures. The question must be asked how terrorists could view those awful pictures and not feel the slightest remorse for their crime. Yet incredibly it seems clear that these disturbed nihilists actually greet such horrors with perverse satisfaction. The perpetrators of this and other attacks reside in a moral vacuum. Nothing engenders universal contempt by all right-thinking people more than the calculated slaughter of innocent people riding a subway in India, London, or Madrid, or, for that matter, taking a bus in Tel Aviv, going to a wedding in Amman, vacationing in Bali, or taking a commercial flight in the US. What some foreign commentators appeared to forget in their early reports of this latest outrage is that Bombay is no stranger to terror, having suffered the first assault in 1987. In the past, attacks have been blamed on Kashmiri terror groups or other Al-Qaeda offshoots, both of which are apparently based in Pakistan.

The method and execution of this latest depravity has all the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda but it is probably far more likely that if Osama Bin Laden’s organization is involved, it is only at one remove. The perpetrators of the latest crime used the Madrid and London attacks as an evil template. Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was quick to express his country’s profound shock and horror at the massacre in Bombay. Indian and Pakistani negotiators are poised for the start of a third round of talks on the resolution of their differences over Kashmir. Neither country will be happy to see negotiations derailed at this delicate moment when so many small but significant steps have already been taken. Nevertheless as shock and despair give way to fury in Bombay, anger against Indian Muslims could once again overflow into communal violence and also trigger enmity against Pakistan.

This is however to ignore two important facts. First of all, Tuesday’s bombs did not discriminate between those of different religions. Of far greater importance was the reaction of the people of Bombay to the tragedy that had befallen their fellow citizens. The authorities halted the city’s entire rail system and emptied the trains. Hundreds of thousands of commuters found themselves trudging on home along the tracks. The always-crowded streets became gridlocked. But there were countless examples of householders and shopkeepers giving food and water to weary, delayed travelers. This grim determination to soldier on and help each other ignored all communal differences. In its hour of need, Bombay looked after its own and thereby perhaps found a new strength and resolve. These simple acts of togetherness and generosity immediately inflicted a first defeat on the terrorists.