Advocate Md. Rayhan Ali: Youth gang violence is increasing day by day across the country. Members of this gang are involved in various crimes including beating, robbery, land grabbing, threats, eve teasing. This juvenile gang is even doing heinous acts like murder. This year, such an incident happened in the industrial city of Khulna. A young man named Yasin Arafat (18) was killed by a gang of teenagers on Friday, September 16. The incident took place at Sherebangla Road in the city around 11:00. According to police and complaint sources, Yashin used to sell fish in the city’s evening market. Yashin was hanging out with his friends at the southern end of No. 3 Kashem Road in the morning as Friday was a weekend day. Around 11 pm, a gang of 7-8 youths came to the spot on an easy bike. At that time they attacked Yasin. First they hit Yasin on the head with a brick. Later, he cut his chest with a chapati and ran away. They left the easybike while leaving. After the incident, locals rescued him and took him to Khulna Medical College Hospital. Yasin died around 12:15 pm while undergoing treatment. Police sources told the media, ‘Yasin’s friends killed him due to a dispute with his friends over 100 rupees. All those involved in the murder are members of the Kishore gang’.
Considering the present time it has become a social disorder. It is needless to say how much the image of juvenile gangs, juvenile delinquency has made the present day society fragile. All the time we see juvenile delinquency statistics in the media. The violence of this juvenile crime is unstoppable. The government has put in place various legal systems including the Children’s Act and courts to curb this crime. Section 4 of the Children Act 2013 provides that ‘notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any other law, every person below the age of 18 years shall be deemed to be a child.’
The Children’s Act provides that any child accused or convicted of an offense under any existing law shall be placed in safe custody or in a child development center or an approved institution instead of ordinary imprisonment.
The Juvenile Act provides for a maximum sentence of 10 years for any crime committed by a child. Apart from this, the court can release a child offender on probation to give him a chance to reform. And the purpose of doing this is that the child has committed the crime without realizing it at an immature age, so that he can grow up naturally in the society with the opportunity to conditionally correct it. The big thing is how much responsibility the family and society are fulfilling to stop this crime. We are doing almost everything digital in the digital age. From agriculture field to office court the touch of digitization. The tendency of children and teenagers to become untalented is increasing due to the threat of the negative culture of digitalization. When children have time, they spend time with mobile phones, not books.
Instead of handing over books to the students of the rising age, parents are lovingly handing over smartphones. And the children are turning away from books by abusing smartphones in this fashion, on the other hand they are getting involved in various crimes including pornography, cybercrime. When a child learns to understand something, if a parent does not hand over toys or educational exhibits to the child, hands over a smart phone. And children spend time playing various games on this phone. So the child is learning how to shoot a pistol, how to fight, how to carry out terrorist activities in this app based video game created by western subculture. In a word, it can be said that the child turns away from the book education and gradually his behavior becomes terrorist in nature. At one point, he started disobeying his parents. Started mixing with the bad boys of the neighborhood. The child’s decline begins.
By becoming a member of the villainous party of the neighborhood, he may become a member of the elder brother or grandfather’s party! Alas life! Roses are falling in the life of some. Again, some mischievous children started activities of a terrorist nature due to the conflict between one teenage gang and another gang. Due to factionalism, some people were killed by pistols or sharp weapons and the headline of the newspaper was – ‘…. Such and such was killed in the factionalism of Kishore Gang’. Now the question is who can say the first hand of this crime? Who helped make this teenager a terrorist? Who spoiled this child with a smartphone instead of handing out a simple toy? The questions remained. Children of the rising age have indomitable hopes and curiosity about the world of life. Many times their lives fall into the darkness of despair due to the pain of hopelessness due to adverse environmental conditions. In this, teenagers gradually become delinquent. Juvenile delinquency poses a hindrance to the overall welfare of the country and nation.
In order to get a good fruit of the tree, just as proper care needs to be taken from the preparation of good seed bed to the fruiting, similarly a child needs proper care to be seen as a worthy citizen. You don’t take proper care of the children, you put the children’s lives in danger by showing kindness and saying that you can’t fix the boy, whose fault do you think it is? We blame our own fate with words and sigh. I never review my actions and mistakes. It is the responsibility of the parent to raise a child like a human being from birth with proper guidance. Not only should the child be given food, clothes and money, but the parents have to monitor everything themselves.
We want beautiful social planning to build a beautiful society. Juvenile delinquency has become a major obstacle to building a just society. Therefore, in addition to the initiative of the government, as a good citizen of the society, you also have some responsibilities. From that responsibility, we will all keep children and teenagers in our respective families away from smart phones as far as possible. If necessary, I will install educational sites on smart phones and teach them. Everyone should come forward to eliminate juvenile crime and juvenile gangs from social responsibility with the overall cooperation of all.
Author: Adv. Rayhan Ali is a Columnist and Advocate at Judge Court, Khulna. He can be reached at advrayhan520@gmail.com
