I wrote in my column “Security at risk from officials' negligence” (Business Line, August 5): “…the ruling political dispensation has been, strangely and inexplicably, very lax in dealing with high officials in positions impinging on national security for their failures, tantamount to negligence, where they could do, and had, in fact, done, great harm…Considering the grave dangers to which (their) omissions had exposed the nation … even dismissal (without) the usual departmental proceedings would have been justified in some cases. “