Rising crimes in the country and weakness in addressing them
Increases in the crimes negatively affect the economy of the country in addition with the psychological pressures on the people. Kidnapping members of merchants’ families from the safe areas in cities cause traders and other investors withdraw their investments from the country to another safer place.
These brutal crimes caused gap between people and the government and even the sacrifices of such incidents hold weapons and for safety of their life and dignity and join the armed opposition.
We recently witnessed a tragic incident few kilometers from Kabul city, where a dozens of gang men raped women who were returning from a wedding ceremony in front of their family and then looted them. This event is as an example, everyday such crimes take place in different parts of the country where media cannot cover the stories. Now the question is what are the root causes of such tragic incidents? And why are they increasing day by day?
Appalling statistics of crimes
However crimes with its different types take place all over the country and need a scientific and exact statics for its assessments, while such statics do not exist. But in the capital Kabul which is more secure than provinces the high number of crimes show that all the country is facing serious challenges.
According to interior ministry’s statics, only in first month of summer 8 murder incidents took place in Kabul city and 30 incidents of secretive murders were found. In most incidents the bodies of the murders were not identified, for example a few days past a beheaded body of a 20 years old girl was found which is not identified yet. In the same month about 224 incidents in all the country has been registered with the high graph in Kabul, Balkh, Nangarhar, Khost and Herat provinces.
According to some figures in first five months of the current year, more than 1,300 crimes took place in which 158 people have lost lives and about 2000 people have been arrested.
According to these records in first five months of the year, 20 incidents of sexual abuse and 9 incidents of kidnapping took place. These statistics show that every four days an incident takes place in Kabul city, where around 15 thousand police serve.
Crimes that most happened are robbery, murder, rape, armed stealing, weapons without license and kidnappings. The interesting part is that the crimes took place in cities and crowded areas. The 5th district of Kabul city with 135 incidents and 8th district with 115 incidents are first and second in position respectively.
It is worth noting that honor killings are also in a high graph in some provinces; for example a few days back in one day five women were killed.
Factors of increasing crimes
The widespread corruption in the country caused that most of the criminals escape the rule, and they commit more crimes. Most of the criminals who are detained have criminal background and it shows that they were once detained and released by the institutions. Therefor the lack of law enforcement causes increase in crimes rate day by day.
One other cause of increasing crimes in our society is presence of warlords and criminal personalities who still have power and back criminal gangs for their own benefits.
The family violations, unemployment and economic problems are also from the causes of crimes and the government in last 13 years did not control them, so they commit more serious crimes.
On the other hand lack of capacity in Afghan security forces caused their failing in control of the crimes; even they are involved in some cases and are backing the criminals.
Along with all these, in past 13 years, the religious and spiritual values our society had been threatened by the media being supporting by foreigners and are used as tools. One of the effective ways to control crimes in the society is having restrictions on immoral broadcasting of the media and promoting moral shows on media.
Supporters of the criminals
In past 13 years every day witnessed a brutal crime, for example in secure areas like Kabul we witnessed kidnappings through high-class cars but no one is prosecuted yet.
The criminals who commit such crimes are mostly the people who are linked with warlords and the government implements laws on people who are not linked with major influential groups. The warlords are even being released by decrees.
Crimes are there in our society in different forms and sometimes they are justified by the government laws. In some cases like Kunduz province we get to know the crimes done by Afghan Local Police, the forgotten voice which was raised few years back but due to governments lacking attention it is considered involved in it. While another warlord Hakim Shujaee one of the local police commanders kills hundreds of innocent people in Uruzgan province and later being released by the Vice President of the country shows how government is involved in promoting crimes.
Though Afghanistan today has more than 450,000 security personnel but there is notable increase in the rate of crimes day by day. The reason is criminals do not have fear the government and the lack of implementation of the law and Allah’s rules.