The rate of crimes is on a rise world over. So is in Jammu & Kashmir. Crime rate being per lakh is calculated by dividing total number of reported crimes of any kind by the total population multiplied by 1,00,000.
The number of unreported offences and crimes under law of any land is a definite addition to the figures a country publishes.
While the crime report for the year 2022 is yet to come, the overall crime graph in Jammu & Kashmir has increased by 23.16 percent in 2021 as compared to figures of 2019 released by National Crime Records Bureau which are as follows.
There was a time when people feared the very sight of khaki uniform, a bare handed police man with a red-blue cap on his head. Gradually people who committed some offense began to argue. Subsequently they started remonstration and skirmishing with police.
To put down the mulish, government supplied police with batons to charge, followed by introduction of wireless communication system to get clue about the suspect.
As the accused further began to see eye to eye with police, government armed the police with fire-arms to seal the commuters and the crime, associated mainly with un-satiated greed for wealth, women and wine.
For countering the refusal of offense or crime by a person narco test, known as narcoanalysis test, was brought in give rebuttal to the accused. During the test sodium pentothal, also called as truth serum, is injected into the person’s body which transports him/her to hypnosis where accused is believed to be incapable of lying.
However, with the increasingly continued negation to financial and moral values igniting the engine of crime, government laced police with improvised combating weapons like installation of closed circuit televisions (CCTVs) commonly known as video-surveillance technology in chowks, offices, malls, institutions and other public places.
Closed circuit means broadcasts are limited to a select group of monitors unlike regular television which can be received and viewed by whosoever sets up a reception device. Still the menace did neither stop nor decrease but continued.
Side by by crime knowledge, crime detection devices on ground, hard laws on paper prescribing stringent physical and financial punishment were laid down to break the spine of crime.
With all this offences and crimes, spread horizontally and vertically, it made the social scenario chaotic. Every gender, age, relation went timorous. Latest was the replenishment with sophisticated drone technology to hover over the places and the persons involved.
Crime kinds and rates vary from country to country and have a strong correlation with age, with most crimes committed by people between ages of 20-30 years. Awareness programmes flashed through radio, print and electronic media also failed before the obstinate, even though knowing the end results of culpability.
The stubborn do not desist from breaking the chain of commission. As per Numbeo Com, 2023 crime index of 142 countries is nowhere below double digit with Venezuela (82.6 percent) topping the list as the worst, Qatar at 14.8 percent (comparatively the best) at the bottom, and India standing above middle at 44.6 percent.
The tendency to crime has turned into a mania such as pyromania, kleptomania, dipsomania, megalomania. The human head has turned into a hydra-head spreading more of its tentacles to venomise more and more areas of life. Being sure of facing some light or heavy punishment, going behind bars or life sentence on conviction, the accustomed do not stall or slow the march.
Man has a measured life, in terms of time and space, said to have been created some 14 billion years ago. He reached a conclusion that there is nothing beyond universe and much of the universe exists beyond this observable universe that may be 90 billion light years across.
Sun, the hottest star visible to the naked eye, is said to be through about half of its life of 10 billion years. Distant and the bigger things are cleared of their role, mass and built-up but nearer and smaller things skip the check.
Man has learnt extraordinarily to fly in the space, bore into the earth, dive and swim across the deep sea waters but is confused how to live on earth. According to its own probabilities it works with a 360 degree approach to improve the security situation yet the circumference goes on expanding.
Why does this all happen and why a watchman becomes a bloodhound? It is because dynamics of character, positivity of thought and visionary outlook have changed.
The psychology and approach to life and learning, its values & disposal, the meaning & necessity or compatibility of coexistence, gender interpretation, yard stick for peace & happiness, definition of wealth & wisdom, valour & cowardice, vice & virtue; the difference between these contrasting things have been blurred enough to cause a person do wrong things and act otherwise prohibited under law & rules in force. Verbally world claims to be have prevented crimes but actually it is infested with incidence of all sorts of crimes.
In the sphere of knowledge there are sciences which analyse different things and their reactions when combined together. For politics & political affairs there is political science, economic affairs social science, for medicine we have medical science, biological science, nano science etc. The only science undermined is moral science. Unless it is made indispensable for every class of pupil inclination toward commission of crime will not diminish.
Whatever the cause for commission of crime, the vigilance and policing are to be enhanced. Also Moral science has a convincing and compelling capability to reduce tendency to commit crimes. This has to be inculcated to resist criminal urges.
The author is a former Sr. Audit Officer and Consultant in the A.G’s Office Srinagar.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.