A criminal commits arson, assault, break-ins, murder, rape, robbery, etc. and a terrorist commits terrorism for political purposes. In India, they have wounded and wiped out so many and wrecked so much that statistics belie the toll on life, property, and business. A property can be replaced; a business can recover; but, alas, the dead can never be brought back to life or the injured back to their original form.

A few days ago three sisters, ages 6, 9, and 11, were raped and killed. They had gone to school on Feb. 14 but never arrived there. Instead, two days later, their bodies were found in a village well and their schoolbags and footwear near the well. Also on Feb. 16, two bicycle-bombs, one per bike, exploded in Hyderabad killing 16 and injuring more than 119. A homegrown terrorist group is suspected to be behind the attack.

According to India’s National Crime Record Bureau (2011 statistics’ Table 1.5), crimes in states and union territories combined jumped from 18,78,293 to 23,25,575 in the quinquennial period from 2006 to 2011, a staggering increase of 24 percent. The cities of Delhi, Kochi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, and Jaipur in that order lead the crime data. The statistics of terrorist attacks and casualties vary. One compilation shows at least 2000 people died in 46 terrorist attacks from mid-1987 to early 2013.

The criminal and the terrorist (CAT) have been committing mayhem in our homeland for a long time and make our government and security agencies appear maladroit. After so many have been killed, so many crimes and terrorist attacks have taken place, and so much spending of taxpayers’ money on victims and on crime and terror prevention, our government still cannot protect us.

Idle Minds

There is a saying “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” The converse is also true, i.e., an occupied mind has no time to think about doing evil.

One way to reduce the CAT population is to prevent idle minds. If our government is interested in stopping idle minds from joining the CAT, it could adopt economic policies that would create jobs for the idle. The jobless rate in our nation is approximately 10 percent and much higher among youth aged 15 to 24.

If do-gooders are interested in seeing idle minds do good deeds, they could form a street level organization called Citizens against CAT (CA-CAT) to keep a close eye on the idle and to steer the idle away from the CAT.

If evildoers are interested in idle minds to perform evil tasks, they could recruit the idle with money and other things. However, neither our government nor the altruists want to see this happens.

While waiting for the government and the humanitarians’ actions, the CAT are hurting our homeland, compounding our exigent problems, and looking for idle minds.