New facets of crime

At an information technology firm in Chennai. Smaller IT companies do not have sufficient resources to address the increasing security concerns of their employees.-SHAJU JOHN

The police as currently organised do not seem to understand the changing nuances of crime or the futility of dealing with it through conventional methods.

THE proprietor of a Chennai-based software company was kidnapped last July from near an automated teller machine (ATM) booth in the heart of the city. A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry following a Madras High Court order, has now revealed that he was murdered by a four-member gang after he refused to pay a ransom.

The modus operandus adopted by the daring criminals was novel. First, they rammed their motorbike onto the victims car and thereafter got into an argument with him. Subsequently, they forced themselves into the vehicle demanding compensation for the damage to their vehicle and forced the victim to drive outside the city towards the Andhra Pradesh border, where they drew money from an ATM using the victims card.

Worse was to come following their demand for a sum of Rs.4 lakh. When the victim demurred and offered a smaller amount, they compelled him to drive on, and on reaching a secluded spot, they hammered him to death. His body was abandoned near the border, and the Andhra Pradesh Police later handed over the case to the Chennai City Police after finding that the victim belonged to Chennai.

Frustrated by the reluctance of the City Police to take up investigation on the plea that the offence had taken place beyond their jurisdiction, the wife of the deceased pressed for a CBI inquiry, which helped to unravel the mystery surrounding the death. This case is typical of the growingly violent nature of modern crime in many of our cities. Abduction, demand of ransom and murder have become the common ingredients of violent crime that is now a feature of urban life with which an average citizen has to contend.

There are reports of similar crime, not always involving murder, occurring in many parts of India. The usual targets are those visiting ATM booths at odd hours or those who flaunt their cell phones in public. Apart from robbing visitors coming out of ATM booths after drawing cash, criminals have broken into booths themselves and stolen cash by using false identity. Physical attacks on security guards protecting the booths are also not uncommon. The rate at which banks are extending the ATM facility to remote corners of a city or town encourages crime that is difficult to police.

I am not all that sure that the police as currently organised understand the changing nuances of crime or the broad message that conventional methods of dealing with crime have become nearly obsolete. My gut feeling is that the targets of crime in India are slowly shifting from the elderly and weak to the fit and more affluent youth who flaunt their wealth or hobnob with the underworld for drugs or sex. The Scarlett rape and murder case reported from Goa illustrates the point eloquently.

One phenomenon that accounts for the new face of crime in urban India is the revolutionary growth of the information technology (IT) industry. Huge development centres have come up in most big cities, and the future ones could be in medium-size cities. This has implications for crime in a variety of ways. The perceived affluence among IT professionals has spawned a lot of crime, some of it is reported and most others just ignored either by the victims themselves or by the police. This is a matter of great worry.

What should cause us the utmost concern is the fact that the IT revolution has brought a large number of women out into the urban workforce. The numbers are staggering. One approximate estimate puts it down to about 20 to 30 per cent of the total recruits each year. These professionals are vulnerable both at the workplace and on the way to and from homes.

Irregular hours of work, location of IT centres on the outskirts of cities involving long hours of travel and closer interaction with male colleagues do add to the dimensions of danger that women employees face. We have had several cases of victims flouting safety measures imposed by their organisations and getting into trouble. (Large IT companies have well drafted security policies and procedures for their women employees.

The smaller ones do not have matching resources to do this. They, therefore, place their women at great risk, as evidenced by attacks reported from a few call centres in recent years.) Discountenancing overtures made by male colleagues is another factor which has led to murders and suicides. Not all companies are sensitive to the growing menace of sexual harassment at the workplace.

It is generally believed that many instances of harassment go unreported because of fear and intimidation by supervisors. While suppressing such incidents is difficult in large offices, this is relatively easy in smaller ones. I predict a rising curve of this form of crime, especially as work stress increases owing to long hours at the office. One striking feature is that a substantial proportion of young women IT employees are from rural or semi-urban backgrounds.

Pitchforked into an essentially urban environment, they are clueless of the dangers in the new setting and relax their vigil against crime, thereby becoming easy victims of deceit.

The staggering spurt in aviation traffic is another phenomenon that could bring in new areas of crime. Airports have become centres of hectic activity in the mornings and late in the evenings. Although entry into the terminal is restricted, the number of people waiting in the periphery is growing at an alarming rate. These are hangers-on many of whom do not exactly have an avocation and pester arriving passengers with offers of a variety of services.

They resort to thefts from unwary passengers, especially foreigners, bringing a bad reputation to the countrys ability to take care of visitors from abroad. Policing of airports and their vicinity is, therefore, a new task that is going to cast a heavy burden on the already slender resources of law enforcement. The creation of new airports spread over a large area is likely to bring a higher incidence of crime, which targets passengers and cargo that arrives or is waiting to be dispatched from our airports. The point is small-time criminals for whom railway stations were earlier the principal hubs of operation are shifting their focus to airports and their peripheries.

I do not for a moment suggest that the police are blind to all these phenomena. Even those at the bottom of the pyramid are better educated and more aware of trends in society than their predecessors of about a decade ago.

My apprehension, however, is that an appreciation of the whole social picture is possibly not available to individual policemen because training inputs do not keep pace with rapid changes taking place in larger cities. My reference is not merely to structured programmes that are part of formal training at institutions such as the National Police Academy, Hyderabad, or Police Colleges in States.

I have also in mind briefing sessions that are an absolute necessity at the police station level. If policemen at the cutting edge level are not sensitised and made aware of the new challenges of urban policing through imaginative face-to-face briefing by the Station House Officer every day, we can expect most crime in cities to be disregarded, leading to considerable public dissatisfaction. At present, briefing of the Constabulary on live problems (such as extortion, ATM thefts, sexual harassment at the workplace, and so on) is minimal, owing to distractions from happenings on the public order front.

This is a serious shortcoming of the current style of policing, which needs attention at the highest levels of the police hierarchy. I am absolutely convinced that formal training programmes cannot be effective without adequate briefing at police stations. How to bring about this mix is a challenge to senior police officers.