BENGALURU: Covid may have wreaked havoc on the health of people across Karnataka with 29,15,317 infected so far and claiming 36,741 lives, even as the medical fraternity remains anxious about a further surge in cases.
But an equally alarming outcome of the pandemic and resulting lockdown is now worrying psychologists, sociologists and crime experts – a looming state of anomie, a social condition characterising a clear breakdown in moral values, guidance and standards for individuals to follow in a civilised society.
The pandemic-induced job losses and rising unemployment are pushing a desperate population to increasingly take to crime and nefarious ways to ensure survival as well as pursuit of addictions.
It is targeting newborns, while sowing seeds even in children to take to crime.
Districts across Karnataka have reported trafficking and killing of infants. From Mangaluru – where a young couple decided to sell their newborn because they were not married and poor – to Chikkaballapur, where a young mother strangled her one-day-old daughter and hanged her from the window of a government hospital in Chintamani after she delivered her in the toilet.
The couple was arrested under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for murder.
“They are construction workers. The young mother had hidden her pregnancy from her husband and family. She delivered a premature baby and strangled her. She had no remorse for her crime,” said Chikkabalapur SP Mithun Kumar.
Last week, another newborn was allegedly thrown out of a hospital window on the outskirts of Bengaluru by her unwed mother.
Illegal adoption, which amounts to child trafficking, has increased in the last year.
In Mangaluru, the police arrested Ryan, who was liaising between the biological and ‘adoptive’ parents.
“He was arrested under Section 370 (human trafficking) of IPC,” Mangaluru Police Commissioner N Shashi Kumar said. Preliminary investigation revealed that male newborns were being sold for Rs 6 lakh and females for Rs 4 lakh.
Mysuru Superintendent of Police R Chethan, commenting on the Nanjangud illegal child adoption case, says their investigation found the involvement of a private hospital which created documents of the child and parents not in the name of their biological parents but in the name of the couple who paid money to purchase the baby.
School dropout making kids vulnerable to crime
The pandemic has left children dropping out of schools, making them vulnerable to fall for crime, to being recruited for anti-social activities and being trafficked.
A recent United Nations report on trafficking of persons and drugs during the pandemic gives a global perspective of the correlation between the pandemic and an increase in heinous crimes, including trafficking of children for sex and organ trade.
An officer on condition of anonymity said school dropouts have become daily wage earners.
“They earn anywhere between Rs 400 and Rs 500 per day. Some of them start abusing substances which lower inhibitions. In many cases, we found first-time offenders committing crime under the influence of drugs and alcohol,” he says.
Whether the neo-initiates will evolve into hardened criminals cannot be ascertained. “When crime originates from socio-economic reasons, it cannot be mitigated easily,” said the officer.
Recently, the Department of Public Instructions filed an FIR at Nelogi police station in Kalaburagi district against a contractor for keeping an 11-year-old boy as bonded labourer.
The Supreme Court ruling in May this year that the police should not apprehend any accused unless necessary in crimes sentenced with less than seven years’ imprisonment to prevent overcrowding of prisons and turning them into Covid hotspots has also had its impact.
DDPI Ashok Bhajantri said the department received a survey report by an agency on school dropouts in which it was said that over 3,000 children in the district are out of school and many of them were working as child labourers.
Sources in the Women and Child Welfare Department say many child marriages have taken place in the last 18 months, and the department is conducting a survey.
First-time offenders
There has been an increase in the frequency of crimes, including heinous ones like dacoity, kidnap and murder for gain after the pandemic outbreak.
Many police officers admit there has been a spurt in crime since October 2020. What is worrying is that in quite a few cases, perpetrators have been found to be first-time offenders.
This, they say, is a direct result of the socio-economic impact of the pandemic with people losing their livelihoods and getting displaced.
The job loss due to the Covid-induced lockdown has had its adverse impact on the youth working in industries.
It has resulted in them gambling for money, in turn, resulting in first-time offenders entering the crime world. Some have even stolen money from their parents and wives to meet expenses for alcohol and online gaming.
For instance, 33-year-old Ravi Kumar, a lathe operator with an engineering firm at Peenya First Stage in Bengaluru, lost his job and became addicted to ‘Dream11 game’ online.
As he ran out of money, he robbed a potter woman of her gold ‘mangalsutra’ and attacked her with a knife before escaping.
He was caught by the police who were able to track him down as, being a first-time offender, he had left his mobile phone behind in a hurry to escape.
The police said Kumar’s game addiction was so severe that with no work for three months, he had mortgaged gold ornaments of his pregnant wife to finance his addiction.
The case led to Tumakuru Superintendent of Police Rahul Kumar Shahapurwad ordering raids on all online gaming dens, nabbing the kingpins in Madhugiri sub-division.
Renowned psychiatrist Dr PV Bhandary says an increase in chain-snatching cases indicates that petty crimes have increased. Lots of people have been unemployed, hungry and stressed, provoking them to indulge in crimes.
“There are relapses of psychological illnesses mainly because they do not have money even to buy medicines. When they do not have money, the sight of someone wearing gold chains and walking around probably is a way to show anger where anomie precipitates crimes,” he says, adding that even suicide among youth is an outcome of that – many are unable to repay paltry loans taken for their motorbikes.
For the young and tender minds, bikes being seized by the banks for defaulting on loan repayment can be most insulting.
A change in trends?
A senior police officer in Udupi says crime related to financial disputes is also on the rise in the district.
“We are conducting surveillance of habitual offenders to know what they are up to now. Some have returned from Mumbai after suffering losses due to the lockdown. We are keeping a watch as the need to earn big pushes the vulnerable to break the law,” he says.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sandeep Patil, in Bengaluru, says cybercrimes have increased as criminals take advantage of people working from home or spending more time on the internet.
“OTP frauds, offering gifts and swindling people, online cheating by promising marriage, and other cybercrimes increased during the lockdown. Online frauds related to offering Covid-related medicine or substandard sanitizers and masks were also reported during the lockdown,” he says.
SHOCKING CRIMES
A rowdy-sheeter was murdered on July 19 inside a bank in Bengaluru by a gang of masked men in broad daylight.
Joseph alias Babli, a 42-year-old resident of Adugodi, had gone to the Union Bank with his wife and daughter in Koramangala when the incident happened between 1.15 pm and 1.30 pm.
Last month, two RTI activists were hacked to death in Vijayanagar and Bengaluru in a span of four days.
Three murders took place in July. In June, 10-year-old Asif Alam was kidnapped by a gang of three men -- Noushad, Siraj and Mohammed Sheikh -- over a ransom of Rs 25 lakh.
Sheikh bludgeoned the minor to death after the police arrested Noushad and Siraj. Police investigation revealed that Sheikh had planned the kidnapping so that he could settle down with his girlfriend in Mumbai.
In May, a young Bangladeshi woman was gangraped in Ramamurthynagar allegedly by her own countrymen – all illegal immigrants from the neighbouring country.
The police have arrested 12 accused in the case, of whom 11 are from Bangladesh. The investigation has unravelled what we know best but choose to overlook -- that the rape survivor, along with many other women, was trafficked by an international network of traffickers, which includes Indians.
Septuagenarian Mamatha Basu, who hailed from West Bengal, and her son’s friend Debrath Behra (41), a software engineer from Odisha, were murdered for gain at Basu’s house in JP Nagar 7th Phase, on the night of April 7.
An auto driver and financier was kidnapped from Indiranagar and murdered when he refused to pay ransom in July.
(With inputs from Chetan M G; Ramkrishna Badseshi; Devaraj B Hirehalli; Prakash Samaga; Karthik K K and Ramachandra V Gunari)