Crime on the rise among Mangaluru youths

MANGALURU: From the murder of Prashanth Poojary to the brutal hacking of history-sheeter Vicky Bolar at midnight and dozens other incidents of communal violence, moral policing and hooliganism in the past few months have highlighted extensive role of Kudla youths.
So far all victims and accused are youths aged between 20 to 30 years. The developments have raised an alarm about youths getting into crime in a region known as education hub of Karnataka.The police, progressive thinkers and social activists say the youths are not guided properly and lack comprehensive thinking. Unemployment is also a factor.
The coastal city has produced underworld personalities in the past but with laws being tight and activities curbed largely, youths are finding new ways into the underworld, feels Vidya Dinker, social activist. “Irrespective of any religion, youth who are not able to harness their positive energy become victims of such illegal activities and it is alarming.”
Another trend among these developments is the entry of new faces in crime. Speaking to TOI, Sharanappa S D, superintendent of police, DK said that earlier habitual offenders and history-sheeters were involved in crimes. “We observed during investigation that 60 per cent of them are new faces and it is disturbing.” Some of them are graduates, while some are dropouts, children of single parents hailing from poor economic backgrounds and mostly unemployed. “What is more shocking is, they even after spending good of amount of time in jails, they are still not able repent and be good, and go back to crime,” SP added.
Inspector-General of Police (Western Range) Amrit Paul during a recent press meet related to Harish Poojary’s death, observed that the arrested youth got into illegal activities thinking ‘injustice’ is done to their majority community.
Even religious outfits agree that youths are taking to crime in the district. Sharan Pumpwell, Bajrang Dal leader agreed and said “Youths are fed up with how the district administration is functioning and get into crime to protest against injustice.”