food for thought

Something strange happened at a wedding in Guwahati recently. The groom’s family members were going to the bride’s home at Lokhra. It was morning, and time for ‘juron’. As customary, they were carrying orments, dresses, cosmetics and other items of persol use to the bride as gifts. Just before reaching the bride’s home, the groom’s family got a sty surprise. They found that the bag of orments was missing. It was a very embarrassing situation. The golden jewels had cost around Rs 2.5 lakh, but more importantly, the loss seemed a bad omen for the wedding. The frantic groom’s family turned back from Lokhra to the nearest police outpost at Jalukbari. To their great relief, they came to know that an honest autorickshaw driver had found the bag lying by the roadside and had deposited it at the outpost. But when the bag was brought out from the maalkha, the shocked groom’s family discovered that the bag was empty. The autorickshaw driver however told them that on finding the bag, he had thought it was filled with valuables inside though he did not bother to open it. The goom’s family now began to suspect something was definitely fishy, and began protesting loudly. The mystery filly cleared when senior police officials conducted an on-the-spot enquiry at the outpost. Two policemen filly confessed that after the bag was deposited at the outpost, they entered the store-room stealthily and stole the valuables. They were at once arrested. This incident shows there are many good and upright persons like the autorickshaw driver among common people. It also shows there are predators among those whose duty is to protect us, who are paid and given a status by the government to carry out their duties. So when a section of public officials refuse to discharge their duties, but instead steal from the public and exploit it shamelessly— it is high time society demand its rights and hold such corrupt functiories strictly accountable.

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