A lot of malls have been springing up here and there. And these malls offer the ease of making everything available under the same roof making it convenient for people to buy daily household stuff. And this trend has made the lot stalking to malls more frequently than ever. And many a times instances of shoplifting have also been reported. We often read such news and ignore them thinking, “Why do people do such things?”

But little do we realize that to commit crime is a basic human nature and this can be corroborated from the very fact that we have law and order systems and surveillance cameras to keep a tab on people? And also we have stringent procedures to prevent and punish shoplifters.

But how effective are these mechanisms and are they clean? With my interviews mentioned above, it has become very clear they are not at all clean in implementation. They work with a single agenda of “NOT PREVENTING THE OFFENSE” but to “PUNISH THE OFFENDERS” and for this they allow people to shoplift and when caught, they just torment them with police complaints threats and extort money from them to the tune of 10 times the cost of everything they’d purchased.

Had it ended there, it would have been fine. But, as I have said, “Truth is often stranger than fiction”, those who are caught red-handed, are not even given any receipt of the fine they are made to pay after police complaint threats. Which means, the booty extorted is shared amongst the security people and the authority people might not be even aware of this gruesome extortion racket going on in the name of “PREVENTION OF SHOPLIFTING”?

While contending that by no stretch of leniency, can shoplifting be justified but the moot question is – how justified are the security people in extorting people by, first luring them to shoplift by making it easy and prey on them by extorting them? And then glorifying the shoplifting and subjugating the extortion.

In fact, the innocent shoplifters – trapped into shoplifting are left red-faced as their hard earned money is shared as booty by the agents of extortion. And it looks highly suspicious to me that the managements of these malls are not aware of this malpractice. After all, for them the security guys are Gods and if by pampering their crime of extortion – they can ensure good business, why not?

Unless awareness is created about “Catch’em red-handed and Spare’em red-faced” practice, it will continue to extort people. And also, this does not eliminate shoplifting – it rather perpetrates it as people will think – “ONLY when I get caught”. Crime under the cover of a crime is also a crime. And it is the moral responsibility of citizens to voice against it.

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