Mugging — wrongly called hijacking — has become so rampant in the city that reports on such incidents hardly create any ripples on the apparently calm surface of life here, no matter how deeply disturbed it may be. The awesome ferocity and ubiquitous presence of the criminals have forced people to live in a world fraught with a fear psychosis. A report published in this newspaper the day before yesterday was no exception to the usual rule of containing all such ingredients but it can be credited with at least one more such element.

The fact that resisting a snatching bld by the mafias of Dhaka is a risk to one's own life needs no elaboration. Most people have therefore resigned to the idea of parting with whatever valuables they may have in their possession when attacked. But when the target of a gang is human being, the responses from either the victims or the people around are bound to be different. In this particular incident the gangsters were after one of the women who were going to Kamalapur Rail Station by a rickshaw to catch a train. When the criminals swooped on the rickshaw and tried to snatch away one of the women, a young man who followed them in another rickshaw risked his life and caught hold of the mastan. The attacker's accomplices then stabbed Md Badruddoza alias Liton, the young man. indiscriminately and left him prostrated with multiple injuries.

The courage Liton showed is exceptional but not quite rare. After all. the woman is supposed to be a near relation of his. In a similar Incident a few years back a young man died after successfully rescuing from criminals' grips a girl, no relation of his. But one must not undermine Llton's effort to resist the criminal gang in his own limited power. What is notable however is that the incident took place on a busy road and in broad daylight when thousands of vehicles were passing by without caring to stop and help the young man in his most helpless and desperate condition.

This appears to epitomise the social psyche of our time. True, unprepared people run the risk of being wounded, even seriously, in the resistance effort. But no man can be safe when the foundation of society has crumbled under the weight of criminality. It is this mentality that should be considered the greatest of all enemies. The government and law enforcing agency can keep their Jobs after the abysmal failures in their duty to ensure security only because we all have failed to collectively respond to the call of duty.