By Abdul Hannan Siwani Nadvi
When Neeraj Kumar, a 1976-batch officer, took the charges of Delhi Police Commissioner on Saturday, 7th of July, 2012, he said “Terror will continue to be a major challenge and cracking down on it will be one of my priorities”.
The fact is that terrorism or terror attacks are one of the many problems of society. There are scores of crimes more dangerous to society than terrorism, and people face them in their daily life but these crimes never attract same attention that they deserve.
This time, governments and security agencies including media houses are wasting hours and minutes in addressing terror related cases and cracking down such groups, while the fact is that most of ordinary people are the victims of the crimes that are not related to terror activities.
Increasing rampant crimes not related to terrorism has become a part of daily life while security agencies, governments and media focus only on terrorism that is why they find no spare time to address other crimes.
See the latest report of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). It shows that Bangalore has witnessed 1,890 instances of crimes against women, while the number of Delhi is second. Delhi has registered 4,489 cases against women.
See the statistics of the years of 2011-2010 on crimes against women. These crimes are more than terror attacks in the same years and in the same periods.
Crime against women: 1,890 — 1,590
Cruelty by husband: 458 — 398
Molestation: 250 — 308
Kidnapping: 206 — 29
Rape: 97 — 65
Dowry deaths: 53 — 52
Sexual harassment: 40 — 50
Crime against women
Delhi 4,489 cases (13.3%)
Bangalore 1,890 (5.6%)
Hyderabad 1,860 cases (5.5%)
Vijayawada 1,797 cases (5.3%)
And now look at police response over the rampant crimes. A senior police officer says; “The police are still not ready to describe the situation as alarming.’’ (1)
New Police Commissioner of Delhi treats terrorism as first priorities, but look at what Union Home Ministry’s data says. According to this data, 14 kids go missing in the Capital everday. Look at more revelations of this data- 5,111 children disappeared in the city last year, even 1,146 children have already gone missing till April 15 in 2012, as per reports. And look at governments and security agencies response over these known crimes. The data also says that there is no trace of 1,359 of the 5,111 missing children in 2011. This is the situation of only Delhi. Other Indian cities have more ugly faces of non-terror crimes. (2)
Are you aware of India’s dark and ugliest secret? This is incest relations that are growing rapidly in Indian society. 53% of children in India are sexually abused. 72% of sexually abused children suffer in silence. 64% of incest victims abused between 10-18 years. 32% of incest victims abused between age 2-10 years. 87% of the incest victims are abused repeatedly. 19% of victims currently living with at least one abuser. (3)
Similary, global discourse on war on terror hides many ugly international crimes.
US annual report on Human Trafficking estimates up to 27 million people living in slavery around the world. (4)
Report 2012 issued by the US State Department reveals that up to one million people in Russia could qualify for victims of human trafficking.
In an article ‘‘Islamophobia: A Bipartism Project’’ Deepa Kumar says that Islamic terrorism is adopted for certain interests while Americans who die as a result of dog bites are more in number than people dying as a result of terrorism. She says, at the end of the day, the fear of “Islamic terrorism” is manufactured to grease the wheels of empire. Statistics (5) In the ten years following 9/11, a comprehensive study (6) shows that of the 150,000 murders in the United States, eleven Muslim Americans were responsible for the deaths of thirty-three people.
All these statistics show that the number of people who die in non-terror cases is higher than terror activities.
Governments, its ministries and security agencies put terrorism as their first priorities, while media houses, Hollywood, Bollywood and Televisions add fuel to the fire.
So, non-terror cases are an eye-opener to all. Governments and other institutions must give some hours on the crimes and issues that affect people of all walks of life irrespective of their religion and castes every day.
Indeed, terrorism is a hot issue of society because media, police and governments make a mountain of a molehill. The whole propaganda shows that terrorism is a political & economical issue rather than a matter of security. Certain political institutions always reconstruct terror issues to gain certain interests. If it is not so, then crimes statistics and corruption data are enough to bring the truth out.
Reference:
(1) http://www.hindustantimes.com/Entertainment/Interviews/I-will-bring-police-and-public-together/Article1-881529.aspx
(2) http://www.siasat.com/english/news/1146-children-missing-jan-till-april-15-2012-delhi-home-ministry-data
(3) Rahi Foundation. Aired by NDTV July 10, 2012
(4) http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Americas/27-mn-living-in-a-world-of-slavery-bonded-labour-continues-in-India/Article1-875493.aspx
(4) www.thenation.com, July 2, 2012)
(5) http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/25/304113/chart-only-15-americans-died-from-terrorism-last-year-less-than-from-dog-bites-or-lightning-strikes/
(6) http://sanford.duke.edu/centers/tcths/documents/Kurzman_Schanzer_Moosa_Muslim_American_Terrorism.pdf
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Writer is based in Saudi Arabia.