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Easy targets
 A
few years ago, a retired woman principal, aged about 62 years, who was staying
alone in a house at Adyar, Chennai, was hacked to death and her valuables were
looted by criminals.
Last year, at Sankar Nagar,
Pallavaram, near Chennai outskirts,
an old woman staying alone in her house was murdered mercilesly with her neck
having been cut off. A auto driver known to her was later arrested with the
looted jewels.
During this year, a 62-year-old
woman was set on fire at her home in West Mambalam by an identified youth.
Recently, at Kodambakkam, Chennai, a criminal
robbed jewels and cash from a 71-year-old woman whose hand was slashed with
a kitchen knife.
If
we study the crime graph of Chennai city and the outskirts, most of the victims
of murders which had occurred at houses happened to be senior citizens. A
majority of the victims of house robberies also happened to be senior citizens.
Why do criminals, of late,
target senior citizens? The reason is very simple and it may be because of two
obvious reasons. Nowadays, due to the disintegration of the joint family system,
most of the aged parents in major cities are living alone.
Most of the present educated
youth prefer to seek jobs in foreign countries and naturally their parents are
left with the only option of living all alone. Criminals mostly target such
senior citizens living alone in houses as they keep valuable jewels and their
hard-earned savings at home.
They cannot also show any stiff
resistance when the criminals attack them and this makes it easy for the
criminals.
 What
sort of precautions can be taken for the safety of these poor senior citizens?
The Chennai city police have been creating a database of aged couples and old
women staying alone in houses. The names, age, address and the details of the
relatives of all senior citizens in Chennai city are recorded and maintained in
the police database.
Police claimed that they would
increase vigil in areas where senior citizens were staying alone. Police inform
that night patrol would also be increased at these places. But can it be a
lasting solution to this problem?
Already, policemen are
overburdened with work. In all the police stations in Chennai and the outskirts,
the strength of the policemen attached to the crime wing do not exceed even 10.
Is it possible that these few
policemen could keep strict vigil and effective night patrol in all areas where
senior citizens are residing? Can it be a practical solution? The policemen
cannot be blamed on this aspect as there are not enough policemen to match the
population.
Moreover, night patrol alone
cannot be the right solution to this problem as most of the robberies targeted
against senior citizens happen only during the day. So, people should take their
own safety measures to curb such menace instead of merely relying on the police.
Those who cannot accommodate their parents due to various family reasons and
those who are working abroad can follow these safety measures:
Aged parents, living alone,
should never be allowed to live in independent houses. They must only be
accommodated in apartment complexes where there are proper security measures
like a watchman, visitors' registers, etc.
If
this idea of accommodation in safe apartments is not feasible, then the second
best option would be to put them up in reputed old age homes.
Those who don't have the
financial capability to pursue these methods should keep their parents with
them.
The junior citizens of today
would be the senior citizens of tomorrow. Keeping this in mind, it is the
bounden duty of all junior citizens to protect their aged parents from the
clutches of criminals.
Harvey
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