How safe are you?
By Renee Ranchan

CRIMES, we all know, are on the increase. And they are of the ‘sick’ variety. The crimes that figure in your morning newspaper no longer belong to the ‘old school’ variety. Many a crime were then committed because of economic necessity. The culprits in these cases were poverty, unemployment, inflation, etc. Of course, this brand of crime still occurs but it has been overshadowed by crimes which are totally incomprehensible. And with the way things are, especially in our metros (the menace is catching on in their adjoining towns, as well), you would think there are one too many psychopaths on the prowl. To illustrate the point let us cite a few cases that have occurred in Delhi in the past fortnight. A five-year-old girl was raped by her neighbour. In fact, this form of ghastly violence against the girl-child (in the recent past many infants have been victims too) is growing. What would you call people who do such things? Devils? To my mind, this is a mild description.

And 10 days back, a three- year- old had his private parts mutilated. The child does not recall how it happened. Did someone lure him with sweetmeats, candy? The boy remembers nothing. He, alongwith two of his siblings, had gone out to see a tractor stuck in the mud near his house. Arun was later discovered on a terrace in agonising pain. The paper that carried these details had a good-size picture of the boy lying in hospital after surgery and his bewildered, broken father at his bedside. Why would anyone on the face of this earth want to harm so viciously this little one?

The police have been constantly telling us to get our ‘domestics’ verified. It is vital to know where she/he comes from, the village address and other such details. That would ‘deter’ domestics from, when disgruntled, doing away with their employers. But do we listen? We don’t. Why is that? Do too much crossing-examining, cross-checking plus registering the prospective maid or servant and you will find you have no employee. Nobody — not even the most honest of them —wants to be put under such scrutiny. And being registered with the police? Good gosh, only crooks, cheats etc have their names in police files. What would the folks back home say? So, you don’t bother about such details. But when the master of house is found bludgeoned to death in his sleep or when the memsahib is discovered in a pool of blood with multiple stab wounds, the police are at the receiving end. (Before you get the wrong idea let me make it clear -- I am no fan of our police force. In this case, however, they are right. You cannot expect a cop to be in your house to guard you against your servant!)

Now where does this bring us to? Two Wednesdays ago, the 46-year-old wife of a Brigadier was found crumpled in a lifeless heap near her refrigerator. The dining table had been aesthetically laid by the now dead woman. The entire morning she had been busy baking a cake and it is presumed that at the time of murder she had been waiting for her collegiate daughter to return so that they could have lunch together. The killer: Ramoo, the household’s 30-year-old domestic who had been with them for a year.

While on domestic help, I am quite sure you have come across the baffling case of a maid and the 12-year -old daughter of her employers. The maid worked all of 25 days (she had been employed through one of the agencies that provide domestic help. In other words, she was supposed to have had her antecedents verified.) The day the maid took off , the daughter of the house disappeared as well leaving behind a note saying the she was tired of her ‘normal life’ and was going far, far away. The child’s mother repeatedly says that the note was written under duress. The child’s signature was different, and there was something awfully amiss with the tone of the message. Why would a perfectly happy child want to leave her home and loving parents with a maid she barely even knew? It is likely that the maid was a member of a flesh trade racket. (I do hope and pray that this theory is wrong and this young girl is restored soon to her parents.)

Leaving your kids home alone is definitely unsafe. In big cities most of us have to live in high-rise apartments which come with a security-check at the entrance. The ‘visitor’ is made to write his name and address and time of visit in a bulky register. With all these measures, how is it that strangers still manage to make it to the main compound, ring anyone’s bell and make inquiries? How do these crooks, murderers, rapists, paedophiles enter these well-guarded apartment complexes? The number one reason is sleeping on the job. It is not much of a task to get by a napping chowkidar or one who is out just for a minute to grab a paan or a beedi. Secondly, we all know what wonders a Rs 50 or Rs 100 note can work. The security man’s justification to himself is that the bloke who is giving him the money is only a harmless salesmen! Moreover, there are service people such as the cooking cylinder delivery lad, the newspaper boy, the chap who carries in those plastic water canisters for your mineral water dispenser. Did you come across case in which a 14-year-old girl let in a mineral water man and finding her alone he misbehaved with her?

Homes used to be the safest place in the world. The question now is, what do we do now to make them safe again?