Last Sunday I heard that PK Halder has been sentenced to 12 years in jail for theft. It is alleged that he embezzled Tk 35 billion from four financial institutions under different names. He escaped ‘indirectly’ and was then caught in West Bengal where he was charged and now convicted. If he had not been caught then perhaps we would not have known all this. This reminds me of another local saying that the guards come only after the thief has fled. Our guards failed to catch him. We heard that he was allowed to cross the border. The point is, was it possible for him alone to be involved in the scam of looting so much money without anyone’s connivance? PK is just the tip of the iceberg.
The word ‘theft’ is quite old, provincial. Its sophisticated synonym is ‘corruption’. Zero-tolerance against corruption was announced with much fanfare. But what we read in newspapers or see around us shows that this ‘zero’ has no value or power. Thieves don’t care about two pegs.
Looting and looting are continuously increasing. It is as Kashiram Das wrote in his Bengali translation of the Mahabharata, A thief has no time for religious preaching. He is addicted to stealing.
How much wealth does a man need to survive! And after all, money does not follow us to the grave. Still, people run after money – and not on the straight path, but on the crooked path. It is not difficult to catch them. If there is a will to catch them, they can be caught. It seems as if he has no willpower. When a thief is in danger, other thieves come forward to support him. There is a bond between them, there is unity. No wonder there is this term, “Thick as thieves”. And when certain sections come out in support of a thief, people assume that they are getting a share of the loot.
We also see how angry he becomes when the thief is called a thief. In his defence, he rebukes the accuser. The accused wears the mask of innocence and becomes the accuser. The accused strongly protests his innocence. Thieves have some strategies. While running away the thief himself calls out, “Wait! Thief!” As if he is chasing the thief. The focus is diverted from the real thief. The thieves have their own gangs, one group defames the other by calling them petty thieves and another group accuses the other group of heavy theft.