One wonders why solutions to certain crimes cannot be thought of and implemented. If logic is robust, “out-of-the-box thinking” may not even be required; if not, then let’s call it precisely that. The latter may well suit an explanation why well-barricaded footpaths is a solution to significantly curtail chain-snatching incidents, not just in Bengaluru but even across two- and three-tier cities in the state.
Last Saturday, a 35-year-old woman, Radhamma, a resident of Thirumanahalli village near Tayalur in Mulbagal taluk, was targeted by chain-snatchers near Kadubeesanahalli bridge in East Bengaluru. The criminal duo on a two-wheeler grabbed her 60-gram gold mangalsutra from her neck and tried to yank it off, but could not. As she resisted, they dragged her for about 30 metres, inflicting severe injuries on her neck, after which they let go and made good their escape.
Passers-by, who witnessed the incident, came to her help and rushed her to a nearby hospital. Sadly, Radhamma succumbed to her injuries on Tuesday – a life snubbed out because some gutless persons wanted to make a quick buck by robbing a gold ornament from their hapless victim.
This is not an isolated incident. Earlier, this year itself, a 42-year-old woman, Jyothi, died in a violent early-morning chain-snatching and chemical-spray attack near Nelamangala on the outskirts of Bengaluru.
Chain-snatching is a common crime in Bengaluru and in much of the state. Blood boils when incidents like these occur; even more so when they end in death. Why should an innocent person – a woman in most cases – lose a life because someone else wants to be rich believing that ends justify the means, however tragic the means may be? Although the cases of chain-snatching have dropped, they are still so common that probably it does not seem like a crime anymore, but just another means of livelihood!
Most chain-snatching cases do not result in death of the victims, and yet they must shake us up enough to ask: why haven’t concrete steps been taken to mitigate this preventable crime? And that brings us to the “out-of-the-box thinking”, if you may call it that.
For some mysterious reasons, barricaded footpaths as a solution that could – and still can – drastically bring down chain-snatching cases, has never seemed to cross the minds of the top brass in the police and the civic authorities, let alone the bigwig politicians who dream of mega projects. One estimate indicates that only three percent of Bengaluru’s roads have well-defined footpaths for pedestrians to walk safety – even if they do not have barricades to demarcate the area within which they have to walk from where vehicles have to move, so they do not get run over. Let alone the barricades, footpaths themselves do not exist in most parts of the city.
Most chain-snatching cases have a common modus operandi. The victims, because of lack of footpaths and forced to walk on the roads, are sitting ducks for miscreants on two-wheelers, who snatch the chain off the unsuspecting woman’s neck and scoot. Rare cases end up in tragic deaths like Radhamma earlier this week and Jyothi, in February.
But death can well occur considering that the neck takes the strain of the deadly tug. The neck hosts the most crucial arteries like the common carotid and the vertebral arteries, which carry oxygen-rich blood from the heart straight up to the brain, face and neck structures. In fact, shouldn’t each of these chain-snatching cases be looked at as “attempts to murder”? But that may never happen. Instead, the police track chain-snatching under broader crime heads like robbery and theft.
Barricaded footpaths and strict enforcement of pedestrians walking only on them rather than on the roads can prevent chain-snatchers on speeding two-wheelers from snatching chains off the victims, because the victims will remain out of reach.
It is surprising that such a simple solution evades the minds of the high and mighty, who instead dream about a network of tunnel roads, which anyway are planned to prohibit two-wheelers and autorickshaws from entering, leaving them on the surface roads without footpaths to help miscreants prey on victims.
Even project costs favour laying standard model footpaths over tunnel roads. Footpaths are estimated to cost about Rs 90 lakh per Km compared to Rs 1,061 crore per Km for tunnel roads. And still, footpaths lack the push needed – as is given to mega projects like the tunnel roads – from the powers that be despite the hope for safe passage to pedestrians, especially women in this case.
As we stand at the threshold of the festive season when women adorn more gold ornaments as part of tradition, policy-planners and decision-makers may please give safe footpaths more than just a thought, while being assured that there is no rocket science involved in it, but enhanced safety from chain-snatchers, for sure!
Nirad Mudur
Resident Editor, Karnataka
niradgmudur@newindianexpress.com
