Criminals beware
Source : Google photo of criminals behind bars
Synopsis: A serious disease requires serious medicine so India is now adopting a new method to eliminate crime and corruption in the country that is unprecedented but very effective. The blog looks at the efforts made by the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh who has made fighting crime and corruption his top priority so that the state can make rapid progress.
There was a time in India when the criminals felt omnipotent. They could rape or murder anyone or take over land from someone forcefully to build illegal structures there. They could kidnap someone for ransom, they could run illegal business of drugs, prostitution and many such things. They carried arms openly and used it to kill or threaten people or even policemen.
The crime mafia flourished everywhere because they paid the police men and the politicians to look the other way so they had a free run. They filled the greedy pockets of corrupt people with their illegally earned money so that they would not take any actions against them.
But never in their criminal life had they ever thought that a day of reckoning was coming for them that would put them in jail or put them out of action for good. They never thought that anyone would dare to challenge them in any way because they felt omnipotent. They even challenged the courts and the justices and threatened them with death if they dared. It was just like in Sicily or in New York.
Their criminal activities reaped rich dividends for them so they became enormously rich that allowed them to hire people who did their dirty work while they lived in huge mansions with high walls and 24 hour security. They even pretended to be religious and visited temples, churches or mosques to show that they were law abiding people who donated some money to clean up their images but people were not fooled.
Their victims never forgot them although they were helpless because they never got justice for the wrong they were done by the mafia. The raped women cried silently because the policemen did not register their cases.
The farmers whose land was forcibly taken from them never got it back so they suffered. The business people were so frightened by the mafia that they meekly paid them the money they demanded. Anyone who defied was beaten up by the goons or killed. Slowly the whole country was divided up by the various mafia clans that sprouted like mushrooms everywhere. Each clan controlled a certain area for their activities and fought with any clan that encroached on their territory.
The Italian mafia people could have profited from this franchise that was freely operating in many countries with impunity but they had their own problems with the Italian authorities that has now started to prosecute them.
The problem of criminality in India is directly related to the systemic corruption in the society as such that allows individuals to profit from it so you will see policemen harassing truck drivers at check points for money that they are forced to pay. The corrupt police men extort money from private vehicles as well on trumped up charges of illegal parking, speeding or any such frivolous issues. I have seen it myself.
The clerk in a government office demands bribe to do his job and smugly calls it the facilitation fee to your face. The vegetable, meat or fruit vendor short changes you and gives you less weight so there are all sorts of corruption everywhere. This happens in any society where people pay less attention to the morality and honesty and want to get rich using corrupt practices. The extortion racket starts to operate freely involving the criminals and the elected politicians as well who see easy money to fill their coffers because they can operate with impunity. No one dares to bring them to justice and put them behind bars. Those who try end up dead.
The hard core criminals are seen driven in their luxury cars accompanied by their well-armed goons so no policeman can give them a ticket for illegal parking or speeding because they are in their pay. The situation in India has gotten from bad to worse in some parts.
A well-known criminal in Kanpur was tipped off by the station police chief who was in his payroll that a raid was about to be conducted in his villa to capture him so the mafia man put a bull dozer to block the access to his villa and turned off all lights. His goons then opened fire on the raiding team of unsuspecting policemen and killed eight of them in cold blood. They also escaped through a back alley including the mafia don.
So a massive manhunt started and the policemen eventually caught up with the wanted man in a neighboring state and gunned him down. His goons were also hunted down and killed in a statewide operation. The bulldozers razed their houses to the ground. The policeman who had tipped off the mafia fellow was arrested and is facing trial and long jail term but this is just the tip of the iceberg.
There are land mafia, coal mafia, drugs mafia, prostitution mafia, kidnap for ransom mafia and human and animal traffic mafia. There are child labor and slave labor mafia, illegal logging mafia, illegal animal skins mafia that decimates the wildlife population of tigers, lions and big cats all over India.
The weak justice system is partially to blame because even the judges are threatened if the mafia men are prosecuted. The lawyers who bring such cases to the court are brave indeed to do so because no one is safe. So the powerful criminals enjoy the impunity and go about their business unabated.
Then a very honest man was elected as the chief minister of the largest state called Uttar Pradesh who declared under oath to put all the criminals in jail and destroy their ill-gotten properties. He gave the order that any policeman found guilty of protecting the mafia will be sacked and will be brought to the court to face trial.
To make the criminals take him seriously he sent the bull dozers to destroy their villas, hotels, shops and other properties they had illegally acquired. He sent teams of officers to raid their premises and discovered millions of Rupees of cash, jewelries and documents that prove the ownership of properties in different cities and villages and seized them all to be auctioned off in favor of the state government. He froze their bank accounts and put in jail the bank officers who had allowed opening and maintaining of mafia accounts so the criminals were in deep trouble. He has prosecuted the corrupt government officials who in anyway aided or colluded with the criminals in exchange for black money.
The sure way to hit a mafia man is to take away all his money, destroy all his properties and put him in jail for trial in a criminal court, arrest all his goons and destroy their properties as well. This started a chain reaction throughout the state so many well established criminals fled to other states where corruption prevails and where they could buy off the politicians and the policemen who promised them protection for hefty sums of money.
The policemen were given order to shoot at sight the goons to injure them in their legs so that they could be interrogated to find out the details of their activities, how many others are involved and where to find them. Many people caught in the police dragnet quickly start to sing like canaries because of the third degree treatment they often receive.
The chief minister Yogi has given order to prepare the list of all criminals in all the districts of the state to go after them systematically. He shows no mercy to anyone who violates the law and promises swift action against them so hundreds of criminals have started to surrender to their local police stations carrying a placard on their chest saying “Please don’t shoot, I surrender “ . Many big time mafia bosses are in jail facing years of trial but they have no more money to hire expensive lawyers to defend their cases.
Source: Google photo of criminals surrendering to the police in India
But what has shaken the big time mafia men to their roots is the fear of bulldozers coming their way. Their villas are razed to the ground and their luxury cars are flattened like cardboard boxes by the bulldozers while a group of drum beaters gleefully add spice to the whole operation.
The on lookers watch in amazement the destruction of huge mansions, hotels, malls and such properties of well-known and feared criminals who now beg for mercy and try to stop the machines but to no avail.
The Chief Minister Yogi has freed thousands of acres of illegally occupied land so far that he is now using to build the houses for the poor there. Some land has been returned to the lawful owners who finally saw justice done to them.
Because of his tremendous popularity due to his zero tolerance policy toward the criminals and his help to the poor people, Yogi was reelected for a second term so his bulldozers are again active. His method of fighting crime and succeeding has caught the attention of the rest of the country so many chief ministers facing a surge in criminality in their states are also adopting the bulldozer method of Yogi. Calls are coming from abroad as well where they want a person like Yogi to solve their problems.
