The laughing gas that brings tears

Though Nitrous oxide is referred to as the laughing gas, Ammonium nitrate is the raw material. Now, this is the cause for a number of terrorist activities in the past few months.

Friday's multiple blasts in Uttar Pradesh, when investigated about were done using large amounts of the explosive. How are vast quantities of the explosives finding their way into the State? Do the multiple blasts foreshadow the looming threat of more strikes in the State?

These are the few major questions worrying detectives investigating the multiple blasts in Uttar Pradesh.

Though 15 persons, mostly lawyers, were killed, causing mass casualties does not appear to have been the objective. The purpose seems to have been to intimidate and demonstrate the reach and capability of the perpetrators. The explosions were synchronised to take place after the Friday prayers. It seems that the Jihadi terrorist organisations prefer to organise their terrorist strikes on Fridays.

The explosions have come in the wake of the judgements delivered recently in respect of the Mumbai serial blasts of March 1993 and the Coimbatore serial blasts of February, 1998. In both the cases, a number of Jihadi terrorists have been found guilty and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. The arrested terrorists were alleged to have been beaten up by some lawyers when they were brought to court. The local lawyers have also reportedly refused to defend terrorists in future.

From these circumstances, it is likely that the explosions were meant to intimidate the criminal justice community, particularly the lawyers.

But the entry of explosives is a little troubling!

In May this year, soon after the Gorakhpur blasts, police in Allahabad recovered 50 kg of ammonium nitrate and 1,000 metres of magnetic fuse wire brought in from the neighbouring State of Madhya Pradesh.

Just before this incident, railway police personnel, during a routine search, recovered about 10 kg of explosives and 20 kg of ammonium nitrate from the second-class waiting room of the Faizabad railway station.

"So clearly, huge quantities of explosives are being pumped into the state and with the banned Students Islamic Movement of India active in many districts, this could be a dangerous trend," warned intelligence sources.

Ammonium nitrate is commonly used in agriculture as a high-nitrogen fertiliser. But, the chemical, when combined with diesel or kerosene, turns into an oxidising agent.

It’s a business run on fear

Recently, a BPO employee was admitted in Apollo hospital due to dizziness. The doctors had asked the parents of the girl, to take a series of tests. The poor parents were uneducated and also from a rural background. They had no clue, what so ever of the urban lifestyle ! They spent all their savings on their daughter and made all the tests. Five days later, when the girl’s parents enquired the doctors about her health status, they come towards them, just to say “The girl dies five days back.”

I can hear a loud ‘NONSENSE’ and I am sure all of you can’t accept that this happened in a reputed hospital like Apollo, but this is true! [Please consider this as just an alleged complaint]

The sad fact is that the issue is not yet being reported by any media, to my knowledge and I was told by my friend, that she would file a story once she gets more details from the parents. But something has to be done somewhere.

The Health of the State is getting worse by the day. The line dividing the haves and have-nots is clearly marked here too. As on one side, scientists find new ways to create life, doctors kill thousands of lives, simultaneously, probably, due to sheer ignorance.

But the above case, I am not sure, what to call, as I do not have full details.

I am just out of another hospital. My mom was admitted this time, as she was diagnosed of mild jaundice. I became over-cautious after hearing the sad case of that girl. We checked with a couple of doctors even before admitting her in the hospital. Thankfully, my aunts had previous experiences of handling jaundice patients. She actually could read the medical report and interpret facts! Any how, I didn’t stop it there. At each stage, I kept asking all sorts of questions, just to make doctors realise that patients are not mere fools to accept all that they say.

My mother had to take a scan of her liver to study the status of the problem, to help the doctor make a proper diagnosis. An amateur nurse who was studying the scan report, saw a clot in the gall bladder, and created a hullabaloo in the scanning room, calling it a big one! When we approached the doctor on this, he said that was nothing at all. I understand that nurses should be given training, but doctors can’t discuss patients so openly, and that too, with someone who doesn’t know much. Since the doctor here was a dependable one and since the patient is a well-educated one, there was no scope for anyone to fool!

I guess now, you would accept that it’s a business run on fear, a fear not in the mind of the doctor anymore, but in the mind of the patient.

Not just that.

It is a business run based on this fear factor.