MADURAI
Three murders were reported in Madurai city and one in the district in the past seven days and the shocking aspect is that juveniles were involved in all these crimes. Sources in the police said that of late the instances of juveniles in heinous crimes have gone up.
The Commissioner of Police, Madurai City, Davidson Devasirvatham, says that boys who drop out from schools and colleges turn notorious persons.
“In a study that we did last year, we found that juveniles involved in crimes were invariably dropouts. And the rate of dropout was around 3000 per year, which is quite high. The change has to start from home through parental control. Instances of drug addiction was also found to be high among boys, who dropped out of institutions. From the police side, we have been holding awareness programmes in educational institutions. However, since this is a large heterogeneous group, it is challenging in terms of reach and impact,” he says.
The police have arrested six juveniles in all of these four murders. In the investigations, it was learnt that the juveniles who dropped out, generally fall in bad company with youngsters in their neighbourhoods.
“Madurai has some neighbourhoods that are notorious in general and the juveniles living there tend to get acquainted with men elder to them who use them in such crimes. In most instances, the juveniles are not the prime accused or the ones who wield weapons but have been part of the crime and present at the crime scene. They move around in bikes with the accused, emulate their behaviours and feel big about themselves. During such murders, the juveniles were used by the prime accused as a show of strength,” says a police official.
Dr. Dheep, psychiatrist and child/adolescent counsellor, says that the problem has to treated at the grass-roots level.
“The reason for boys dropping out is a twisted logic that they can gain fame and money through antisocial activities and this thought in them is a result of the impact of the neighbourhoods they stay in. In these neighbourhoods, persons who indulge in antisocial activities are looked up to. People tend to glorify them and the boys get impacted by this. The police may rope in NGOs working in the field of adolescent welfare and re-start boys clubs in these areas. Boys clubs would wean boys from the risk of getting involved in crimes,” he says.
