Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'The most condemnable act' that was published in Newsband

The most condemnable act

The shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur over Ukrainian airspace on Thursday has shocked the world. There have been at least 20 such incidents since the 1940s, when aircraft have been struck down by a missile or military jet.

The fallout of the war in Ukraine, in which Russia has played a controversial role, has now become an even bigger international issue with the shooting down of this aircraft. Some countries have already appealed to the United Nations to play a more decisive role in ending this conflict and also take charge of the investigation.

This tragedy witnessed the death of one Indian also. Whoever committed this act has heartlessly killed 295 people including 80 innocent children. The world was expecting the USA and Russia along with the UN to sit together, discuss and prevent further such tragedies. But that is not happening.

Now the UN needs to intervene in this matter on a war footing. Also just expressing condolence is not enough. Presidents and Prime Ministers of all the countries need to make co-operative efforts to avoid such situations in future. This may be a duel between two countries but it is taking toll of the lives of people worldwide which should be strictly condemned.

India can play a useful role provided they are made a part of UN Security Council. In the present scenario, it is the prime duty of UN Security Council members to make India a permanent member in the UN Security Council. If this happens, then in the long run, US, Russia and China will reap the benefit from India. India has the potential to be the most trusted UN Security Council's permanent member and is capable of playing a major role in ensuring the harmony among the NATO, Russia & other Asian countries. UN Security Council needs to define the safe-fly-zone in the globe and make the signatories responsible to prevent the recurrence of such incident.

There seems to be some high level international conspiracy. This is clearly an "innocent bystander effect" of war. The pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine haven't objected to the accusations, and the intelligence gathered points to the firing from such a group. However the question is, was this a targeted attack or an accidental shooing? Airlines need to avoid this airspace and the perpetrators brought to justice. Russia needs to stop arms supply to separatists and end its designs on Ukraine. It’s also time for UN to interfere completely into the Russian-Ukranian matters. UN has to take necessary measures to keep peace in this area before the situation gets worse than this.

It appears that the plane has been brought down by a trigger happy psychopath. The fact that about three hundred innocent lives were lost owing to the callousness of the yet-to-be identified armed forces is disturbing the collective conscience of the World. UNO, apart from conducting an inquiry into this diabolic incident, must immediately plug the sources which supply arms to this zone of conflict. That the international airlines continued to use this dangerous airspace until the tragedy is much more puzzling than who shot down the MH17!

The entire world should come together not just to condemn the act but to effectively punish the guilty, however powerful they may be, and to ensure the non recurrence of such acts in future in any part of the world. Let us not give an impression that we quietly succumb to terrorism.