One act of crime, however heinous, cannot be used as an ideal peg to hang a case of deterioration of the general security situation of our citizens. But the very unusual mid-day dacoity at Justice Masud's Banani home on Sunday tempts one to believe that the criminal elements have a very low opinion of policing activity in' the city and that thev have driven home their point by their successful expedition. Now that police have been beaten in their preventive role, they must justify their existence by playing their part, together with the judiciary's, in the curative aspect of dealing with crime.
Top people in our society are doubly or trebly secured against house-breakers. First, their houses have built-in security, that is built in areas and in such wavs as do not encourage criminal designs by outsiders. Secondly, top people have their private security manpower and the retired judge had in his house eight servants, possibly not counting the guards who should number at least two — at the lime of the operation mounted-by nine or ten culprits — all of them said to be over 30 years of age. Thirdly, police take special care of top people's security-related problems — at least that is the norm. When all of these failed and more — Justice Masud and his wife and son were bound by the dacoits very evidently the three having failed to strike up any way to beat the brutes — the incident must set all intelligent persons at unease. There must be something wrong with more things than merely the evil act of the dacoits. The dacoits carried away, reportedly, only cash and ornaments — and not expensive electronic things or fabulous collector s items, — valued at more than 14 lakh Taka. The smell of such a booty could be one of them depending upon what one feels to be the safe margin of valuables to he kept in the house.
Why are guards and numerous servants employed if they keep an open house for any determined group coming up with pistols and daggers. Legends say that one Gurkha guard would be enough to keep the whole gang at bay until killed in the process. For the inexperienced and the easily frightened ones among those employed as guards — this type forms the majority, two words of encouragement. Don't fear the fire-arms, for all their appearance they may be toys or even funnier things, the attackers' favourite in America is cucumber held in a certain way. If they are the real thing, you can be certain the culprits have not undergone training at any shooting range and as such they are all sure to miss even from five yards away.
The Banani dacoity was a very unusual crime. Mr Justice Masud and his wife must have undergone a most traumatising nightmare. We pray for their early recovery from the shock as we expect the police to do an early and efficient work of nabbing all the culprits.