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Bad people still with us
2008-01-24 09:11:19
By Editor
Over the weekend, there was a peculiar incident during which the official vehicle of the deputy minister for Public Safety and Security was stolen in Dar es Salaam, and the minister`s chauffeur feared either to have been kidnapped by the carjackers or was one of the accomplices to the crime.
It is very easy for ordinary people to dismiss the incident altogether because for once it has affected a minister, and that it was high time the big shots had a taste of the spate of crime incidents which are occurring around the country.
This kind of thinking is erroneous, because if the criminals have done this to a senior government minister this time around, tomorrow the victim might be me and you, and what are you going to do once that happens?
The whole society has to understand that such a misfortune can befall any one of us, and it could even cost your life.
This daring episode signifies that the criminal network has consolidated its position, such that they have seen it opportune to pick the taboo vehicle.
The car might have been parked in a protected area, where it could have been easy for any car theft to be noticed quite early.
This particular incident has thus taught us that fighting such an organized crime ring should not be left to security organs alone, but needs the active cooperation of good citizens.
If this car was really stolen, the thieves are living among us, and we are the ones who own the garages where vehicle modifications might be made.
Let us revive the same spirit like when the whole population cooperated with law enforcing organs in exposing criminal networks at the beginning of the office tenure of the fourth-phase government.
We do not need to go back to the time when people were tense as they slept in their homes, when robbers virtually reigned over the society, when people were even afraid to go to the banks lest a criminal ambush or hold-up might occur.
The theft of the minister`s official car must have been a well-calculated action, which involved tracing the minister`s movements, timing the stealing and organizing a smooth escape.
This was not a single-person’s adventure but the work of a well coordinated gang.
Again, we wish to state that this incident should be taken as a sign of something worse that could happen in future.
We have to do away with the culture of indifference and criminal negligence in the sense that we allow criminal behaviour to take root in our society, although there was something-however little-that we could have done to avert the dangerous trend.
It is a pity that whenever a major crime-busting campaign is successfully undertaken, crime incidents resurface again after an assuring lull, when people are already saying that unlike the past, we now feel safer.
It is always hard to admit that bad people are still with us.
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