It was around 8.30 pm, a man was
caught hiding behind a house, he ran away jumping dangerously down a steep hill
and ran across the wasteland. A man
bathing in a well heard the commotion and seeing a man running towards him caught him by his
shirt collar.
The others who were chasing him searched
him for any hidden arms. He had
none and
he was taken over by them to be handed over to the Police. He was drunk. He was questioned and it was found that the man works in a
garage and after work he comes to the liquor Bar. He takes a drink or more depending
on how much money he has. After the drinks he walks about looking surreptitiously into houses through open windows, taking a
pleasure looking secretly at women.
He was handed over to the police
who took charge of him. Later it
came to be known that he had been visiting other houses and even stealing
women’s underwear hung on strings for drying.
That is a “milder” case of perversion.
But yet they speak of a more serious wave of crime that has been
reported lately. The Government in order
to stop these sex crimes against women and children set up a special police
force. In all reported cases of
murder of women the police had found in the vicinity of the crimes empty
bottles of liquor.
Therefore one should seriously
think whether there is something other than a special police force to stop this
situation taking a more serious turn. A
man caught for acts of perversion is released by the police after a few days
detention and immediately he gets some
money he visits the pub for his daily drink of alcohol and returns to his
nefarious activities which may eventually end by his committing a sex
crime. How can these sex crimes be
stopped ?
It is certainly not by mere detention of the miscreant by police.,
and releasing him.
In many villages in Sri Lanka to-day
the men are kept away from the temple and their family by their habit of
frequenting the liquor shops. These are the places that breed crime, but as
most of the liquor shops are patronized
by the local MPs and has made the liquor shop owners political confidants of the local MPs and
influential men of the political parties, sex crimes go unchallenged. Unless a serious effort is made by the Government to close all liquor shops in the country, sex
crimes will continue to menace our country and
may take “another terrorist dimension”.
The Government taking cover under
the establishment of a special police force to curb sex crimes will serve no
purpose until a firm decision is taken
to close all liquor shops at least at village level. All these sex crimes that
have been reported lately had been committed by
Sinhala Buddhists under the influence of liquor.
‘Stop Alcohol’ (Mathata Thita) is
a slogan of the Mahinda Chintanaya, but it remains a slogan without any
positive step to close down liquor bars, which are sponsored by MPs with a view
to keep their voters in their favour whatever negative effect it has on the Sri
Lanka Buddhist society.
Therefore, steps should be taken
to bring a closer relationship
between the people and the temple. In order to make this happen we should have a more active Ministry of
Buddhist Affairs which is today a shameful
nonentity in the Cabinet of the President Mahinda Rajapakse.
The JHU and the Buddhist Sangha
should open their eyes to this problem and take an active part in uplifting the
falling moral standard of the Sinhala
Buddhists.
No comments:
Post a Comment