Bad choppers, fake pilots: no Geronimo please

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The world watched as the biggest news of the year broke: the most wanted terrorist and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is dead. US President Barack Obama proudly announced on world television that his country led the operation that killed Osama.

The operation called Geronimo has caught the mind space of many people in India, who now want the Indian government to get their most wanted men, Dawood Ibrahim and Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, from Pakistan.

My first thought is that the Indian government really cannot take a strong enough decision to carry out an operation like Geronimo. But if at all we decide to go for it, can we succeed with headlines like these staring at our faces:

Arunachal Pradesh CM dies in a chopper crash

Two days after the US announced the end of Osama and got Indians demanding their men, the news came that the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh Dorjee Khandu, who had been missing since Saturday, has died in a helicopter crash. It was disheartening as this was not the first time that India read such a headline. Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YSR Reddy also met the same fate. He also died in a chopper crash in 2009.

We well know that US used helicopters to carry out operation Geronimo. The question is, can India really deploy helicopters as confidently with even VIP choppers ending up in deaths and rubbles? With this quality of choppers in our country, it's hard to believe that an Indian helicopter would manage to even reach its Geronimo safely.

Another headline that adds to the worry is this:

Fake pilots scam: Two more arrested

If at all India decides to go for a Geronimo, another fear that rises is: is the pilot flying the mission machine genuine? With pilots producing fake marksheets and getting into flying schools, we may not be too sure of the kind of pilots that India is producing. It would be hard to believe that the pilot flying the operation Geronimo chopper would be a safe option.

Therefore, it's not just about taking the decision that India needs to carry out an operation Geronimo. India needs to reconsider and improvise even its basic resources, with such haunting headlines.

For now, it might just be 'No Geronimo' for India.