Deepakshamli’s Weblog

A PROFESSOR was beaten to death by his own students in Ujjain. A gang of nine taxi drivers from Gurgaon robbed and killed at least 35 people after offering them lift; a crowd of revellers stripped and molested a girl in full public view at gateway of India in Mumbai on the New Year’s eve. Days after horrible Nithari killing, four decomposed bodies of children were recovered from an abandoned godown in Punjab and the sexually assaulted teenage girls in the Kashmir valley are still struggling to cope up with trauma. These are just few grim incidents of the last couple of months, which shocked India and revealed how crime is becoming a dominant fact of urban life and a growing blight on countryside as well.
 
The impact of the crime in India is that today more and more people report that they keep some kind of self-protection at home; watchdogs are becoming as popular as the friendly family pet.  Vigilante groups and private security agencies are flourishing. Even in the national capital not only women prefer to stay off the streets at night, but parents also feel insure about the safety of their children.

 

“I am quiet worried about my daughters,” says Radika, 40, who lives in Lajpat Nagar area of Delhi. After Nithari killings, she is so fearful that she accompanies her daughters to school everyday. “I’ve this fear that my daughters are not safe anymore,” says Radika.

 

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) of India, a governmental agency responsible for collecting and analysing crime data says, in every 19 minutes in India one person is murdered while one woman is raped in every 29 minutes and one kidnapping takes place in every 23 minutes.  In 2005 statistics available from the National Crime Records Bureau of India, reported 50,26337 crimes of which 7026 are dowry deaths and bride burning.  “The statistics reflect only reported crime. Most crimes in our country are not being reported,” says Alok Verma, chief statistical officer of NCRB. The intimidated victims often don’t report because numbed victims expect no help from police.

 

The crime wave has raised many disturbing questions. Is India’s social system crumbling? Are the youngsters really more crime-prone than they have been in the past? And more importantly, what is the police and judiciary doing to ensure the safety of average citizen.

 

According to many psychologists, as freedom increases, so does crime rate. “When you have greater amounts of individual freedom you probably would experience a greater amount of social deviance,” says Aroona Broota, a leading psychologist. The rapid economic development in India is also giving rise to crime. The sudden prosperity or quick technological development unleashes overweening ambition. Expectations rise to unreasonable heights, and in the economic stampede that follows, some people move ahead rightfully, while others walk on the rules, and crime soars.

 

But the question is also there: Is this frustration of falling behind in life alone that is pushing people towards crime. After all, why not work for those goals instead of breaking the law?
 
“There are many things which are pushing people towards crime. But I think many people want short cuts to achieve their ambitions. To them crime seems only ladder to achieve their goals and they think that will evade the police,” says Rajan Bhagat, assistant commissioner of Delhi Police (Crime Branch).  “If an individual has a stake in society he is less likely to become criminal than someone with no job and no future.”

 

A large proportion of Indian youth (according to NCRB 44 per cent of the arrested criminals belong to the age group of 10 to 30 year) yields to the temptations of crime is also an evidence of a deep disquiet. Too often, there is some sort of family reason in the making of criminal.

 

“Without strong guidance from a devoted father, it is all too easy for a boy to become a school dropout, to drift aimlessly into petty thievery. Often he sees no alternative to a life of crime, for the vast technological changes have sharply limited the market for unskilled labour,” says Aroona Broota.

 

As Nikhil Kumar, former commissioner of Delhi Police says  police force has to be reformed to make application of law firm. No doubt a respect for law and a confidence in punishment is a best deterrent to crime.

 

But the part of the problem is also that even if police do their job and produce the culprit before the court of law, there is an uncertainty of punishment, particularly if the culprit is politician or linked to politician. The criminal-justice system in India is absurdly slow, overburdened and it is random in its selection of who is to be punished. According to NCRB, out of 50,26337 reported cases in India in 2005, the conviction rate is just 42.4.

 

The problem is also that some of the old values and religious restraints have been battered by the fast changing social life and the youth rebellion. As social responsibility looks forgotten thing and disillusionment set in, fewer and fewer people look to the religious places, learning institutes for moral leadership. Today’s widespread moral smoothness tends to agree with the old saying that a society gets the criminals it deserves.