BENGALURU: Young Non-Resident Indians are fast getting lured to criminal gangs as their families are struggling to find means to deal with the growing menace.
It was a point of discussion among a plenary session at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas and the NRIs and Person of Indian Origin tried to learn from each other's experience.
" Second and third generation Indian youth were getting more and more involved in crimes and forming their own diasporic gangs," Sree Sreenath, an Indian origin university professor from Cleveland, Ohio said here on the third day of the PBD. His concerns were echoed by the other members of the panel that represented Indians in western countries.
He indicated that sons, daughters, nephews and nieces of NRIs in the western world are getting increasingly involved in criminal activity and use of contraband. Sreenath says in the US, most of the Indian gang members are recruited at a young age of 14 or 15 years and roped-in by influence of drugs and ease lives.
“Working with Sewa International, as a voluntary activity, I have personally interacted with so many of these youngsters. It is a growing menace and the Indian community needs to step-in,” he hoped.
Sreedhar Mysore, a social worker from New Zealand, also talked about how some gangs of white people were trying to harass Indian women and many of the young NRIs are forming their own desi gangs to tackle the situation.
"While there are the larger organised gangs which is operated by the whites, Indian gangs are making their way into the criminal world by way of small time thievery, carjacking, peddling drugs etc,” Mysore said. The reluctance on part of Indian families to report the wrong doings of their families, said Mysore, has also been part of the problem.