College students arrested for theft at Nayapalli police station in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, May 3: There has been an upward trend in crime by youngsters in the capital. This disturbing statistic emerged after many educated youngsters, especially college students, were arrested in the capital in the last few months. In most cases, the youngsters took to crime to earn some quick money.

“Earlier, most of the criminals were generally school dropouts. Many used to commit petty crimes. But that image is changing with the arrest of youngsters from middle class and educated families,” said a police officer, requesting anonymity.

These educated youngsters are getting involved in sophisticated crimes such as blackmailing and stealing electronic gadgets. A senior police officer said, apart from being involved in criminal activities, these youngsters are also responsible for nearly 60 per cent road accidents in the capital.

Sociologists believe that educated youngsters in a growing city such as Bhubaneswar are becoming more concerned about their social status. This leads them to go to any extent to keep up with the change.

“Consumerism and adventurism affects the youngsters more and prompts them to go for easy money. So, they either opt for petty crimes such as snatching, or resort to blackmailing others,” said sociologist D.N. Jena.

Jena also added that lack of parental guidance and absence of proper course curriculum to keep them engaged is responsible for the spurt in crimes by educated youngsters.

Psychologists also believe that youngsters, these days, are more success-oriented. They want quick success in every field. When they fail to achieve that, they resort to crime. “Besides most of these students do not have interest in higher studies. They have been inducted into the system forcibly. Particularly youngsters from middle class families face such problems. To maintain a certain status they look out for routes that will yield them easy money and opt to crime without thinking about the after effects,” said psychologist Haresh Mishra.

TROUBLED MINDS

May 2, 2011: Two youngsters were arrested for stealing laptops from private hostels and houses. One of the accused is an engineering student at a private college in Bhubaneswar.

May 1, 2011: Three youngsters were arrested for allegedly kidnapping a girl and then threatening to kill her after taking her nude photographs. Syed Ali and Subhjit Sethi, two of the accused, study animation in Delhi and engineering in Bhubaneswar, respectively.
l April 8, 2011: The Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Dimpli Jena, a youngster from Calcutta, who along with his girlfriend had cheated more than 20 people in Orissa after promising them jobs with multinational companies. The duo was engineering pass-outs.

February 13, 2011: The Government Railway Police arrested one Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra for stealing from AC compartments of trains. He was an engineer. Police seized a car, few ATM cards and ornaments worth Rs 2 lakh from him.

November 8, 2010: Bharati Singh (23) was arrested from Dharmavihar area under Khandagiri police station for kidnapping and looting two junior engineers. The police seized three pistols, some live ammunitions, 12 mobile phones and cash worth Rs 72,300 from her. Her male company ion had fled the spot. The police are still searching for him. Both of them are engineering students.