The curious case of the murdered banker....

It is the latest headline-grabbing crime story in Chennai: a banker who had recently opted to retire voluntarily, had his throat slit open by a gang of three young men he had befriended. They killed him after sharing with him a meal he had cooked for them...
All for 12 sovereigns of gold and a little money...
While the neighbors slept on...

And it is only a few short weeks since the city was in the grip of a psycho killer, who attacked security guards and rag pickers, slit their throat and cremated them without a sound.....
While the neighbors slept on......

Security guards all over the city immediately stopped sleeping on the job!!!!
They bonded with one another..
The sound of incessant whistling and counter whistling rent the night air....as signals in Watchman Code went back and forth...it made sleep impossible.......
That and the feeling of guilt...that we were dangling live bait in front of a crazed killer.....
We just could not sleep on...

For a few brief weeks...
Thapa Bahadur our own watchman, gave his ninety winks a miss...he turned down all offers of security behind grills in verandahs...took to sleeping in the open air...stake-out style...until swarms of marauding mosquitos...a quintessential feature of Chennai's night life forced him to take cover in Amma's abandoned old Fiat.....the locks still worked...so he could sleep again.....
And we too could....at last...

Who is this weirdo with a vendetta against watchmen??..we wondered...

We did not have to wait long for an answer...
The police nabbed not one but a gang of psycho killers.... boys who attacked ragpickers and security guards to rob them of their money!!!

Jeeze.....how much money did they think a rag picker or even a watchman would have on him????
Some loose change??? Less than ten bucks???!!

It would have seemed more plausible if they had said they did it as some sort of perverse blood sport... a macabre quest for gore...but no...money it was they said they were after...
Like THIS was their idea of a get-rich-quick scheme???!!!
Dense????
No, psycho!!!!

So too in the case of the murdered banker...He was a banker right?....Would he stash his retirement funds under his pillow??? He, of all people, would keep it in a bank, you'd think??!!...Right!!!

So all they got was Rs 14,000 in cash and the 12 sovereigns....not more than 100,000 Rs....not even a number that is easily divisible by 3....about Rs 33,000 apiece......
Dense???
Again???!!!!...
No, psycho....
Again!!!

Should we blame the state of our education system that it does not even develop logical thinking in crime-prone youngsters???!!!!

Or is it a reflection of the terrible times we live in???......
Anyone??..
For even small change??!!...

Madras in its heyday was a very safe place...its denizens turned in by 9 pm.....leaving the roads deserted... ..the police patrolled the empty streets in their cycles.......
That apart, brave young Gurkhas descended from their Himalayan homes.....
With just their kukhris and their boundless courage, they roamed around.. patrolling the streets at regular intervals...in twos and threes...all through the night..for a small charge..
If anything went amiss...the gurkhas were called in...but usually nothing did...but it is not so now....

A geographical relocation in terms of criminal activity is underway...crime is no longer restricted to those few pockets of the city which you entered at your own peril...it seems to be hitting the heart of Chennai...
Localities like Tambaram, T Nagar and Kilpauk....once considered safe....are now proving otherwise...

Add to this the release of hardened criminals to celebrate the birth and death anniversaries of political leaders....what can the average citizen do???......other than feel like an endangered species...

Also, to add to the confusion, a new-look criminal is doing the rounds...
Abandoned are the thick mustachioed, scarred, warty, thugee looks...that is reserved for the reel life villains..
The real life ones tend to look like more your average every-day Joe...
As did the banker's killers...two of them were working.....the banker got one a job!!...the third was a student...
Gosh!! I could make friends with them...they look so...what's the good word???....yes!!!.... decent!!!!....they look decent!!!!
Heck!! even the banker's Doberman didn't smell a thing!!!!

So young..and yet...
Why did they put such a low value on their freedom???
It is a beautiful world out there...and there is always hope...
Why would anyone want to spend it..shut away among hardened criminals and other deviants....forever..or until another political leader's birth or death centenary arrives...just for a little money..

Or did they think they would never get caught???...So little faith in the ability of our cops to track them down??

Indeed one hopes that the police has water-tight evidence.....that it is not of the circumstantial or the forced confession variety, stemming from a katta-panchayath type investigation....
Surely, the dead banker deserves better...
Some hard irrefutable DNA type proof that would stand up in a court would be good...of the kind one sees in Bones or Criminal Minds or NYPD Blues....
Or even one of those Discovery Channel crime serials.. the kind that have inspired a generation of nieces and nephews...and made them yearn to study forensic science...

One hopes.....

There is also a lesson in this for VRS-optee bankers who may be reading this piece...do not spread the word about your VRS...you may have a Swiss Bank account...but if the word hits the street then the kidnapping brigade will put you on their hit list!!!!!..definitely!!!

So take care all you beautiful people out there..
Do not befriend strangers...
If you must, then at least abstain from inviting them and their cronies for sleep-overs..especially if you are old...or middle-aged...or even young...

Adios...
May you be safe from all throat-slitters, psycho killers and their kind forever and ever.....
Even if you live in Chennai....