Chain reaction

Vroom! The motor bike with a pillion rider swishes past close to the woman walking in the street; she feels as if she has been stung by a wasp near the shoulder, she gropes for the pesky moth and alas she finds her valuable gold chain is gone. Women victims are most often too dazed to shout or report to the police immediately.

Recent reports suggest that there is no safety for women even when they walk in groups. For most women the pain of parting with a prized possession and consequent loss of money is compounded by sentimental value, if it happens to be thali. For a few days, the women experience emotional trauma characteristic of robbery victim; anxiety and fear of recurrence.

Years ago, my wife and mother have both been prey to the predator, my mother in Avadi, Chennai and my wife in Kolkata. In my mother's case the police dog lost the trail after reaching the railway station and there ended the story except for the recurrent dreams.

In the case of my wife, the action of the police was typical. When she first reported the incident to the police, the inspector admonished her for not yelling since in Kolkata, the culprit, if apprehended by the mob, would be thrashed on the spot leaving very little for the police to do. Then, some pressure was put on the police through massaging contacts among high ranking officers. After some weeks they informed her one day that the chain was found and summoned her to one of the courts in Alipore.

Court proceedings

When she went there, a cop instructed her to merely say “yes” if and when the judge spoke to her. It was an awesome experience by itself for a housewife to see so many lawyers in black robes, judges in dark and dingy hovels, hand-cuffed accused, being escorted, crowds in walkways and above all, total confusion and chaos or so it seemed to her. That done, she was called to Lal Bazaar the City Police Headquarters where she was admitted to the vaults in which several packets of molten pieces of gold and ornaments were stashed . She was given a piece of molten gold and asked to sign a receipt that her “lost chain had been received in original condition”. Case closed.

Usually cases of chain snatching are not followed up at all by the police except for the first few days . However, when pressure is applied from top, one of the habitual offenders in the cops' list confesses and molten gold is taken from goldsmiths who act as fences and they are presented as the accused and material evidence respectively. Not a day, now, passes without newspapers reporting chain snatching in all the major cities and towns of India. No longer the city police can brush it away as a lowly crime and allow it to go unreported or undetected.It is time the police give the crime a heinous index ranking just below eve teasing as most victims are senior citizens and also provide a separate helpline. Of course, police and women's organisations should sensitise women to the personal risk they run when they flaunt jewellery in markets and footpaths.

(The author is a former Member, Ordnance Factories Board.)

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