People may wonder why youth are taking to crime in an age when almost all areas in cities and even small towns are under CCTV cover. Additionally, there are other ways of digitally tracking criminals, as almost everybody has a presence on the internet. In most cases, the perpetrators of crimes are identified within days and caught soon after. Such is the situation that even people who went missing after committing crimes decades ago are now being caught from wherever they had chosen to hide.
So, if crime cannot be a chosen career, there has to be some compulsion involved, such as a desperate need for money to pay off debts, meet urgent expenses, to satisfy an addiction, or take revenge. Surely, young people are well enough informed to know that, more than ever, crime does not pay. The challenge before the police, today, is actually prevention of crime more than catching those who have committed it.
That a VIP politician like Baba Siddique should have been killed reportedly by hired gunmen who were paid around Rs 3-5 lakhs indicates the easy availability of people willing to put their lives at stake for such paltry sums. Organised gangs seem to be finding it easy to obtain this cannon fodder to conduct criminal activities such as drug and human trafficking, targeted killings, etc. It may be noted that the burgeoning of the crime economy has led to a number of nations being hit by gang warfare and lawlessness.
Just as religious and ideological zealots build up militia by exploiting the psychological weaknesses of socially alienated youth, criminal gangs seem to be doing the same. The underworld of country made pistols and bombs has expanded in many parts of the country, where it increasingly enjoys political patronage. The expanding network and infrastructure need to be attacked if prevention is to be the goal. Also, once again, awareness has to be generated among youth through social outreach on how the glamour and power of the ‘dons’ as portrayed in movies, serials and social media is an illusion. With increasing identification of the resource pools from where such ‘hitmen’ are recruited, their scrutiny should be enhanced by various means. Merely waiting for the next attack to happen and being satisfied with catching the culprits cannot be the norm.