Taken from Times of India.
JABALPUR: The residents of a government hostel for blind boys on the
outskirts of Jabalpur caught a burglar trying to sneak into their
hostel and handed him to the police.
Vicky, a 21-year-old small time thief vaulted the fence of the hostel
on Wednesday. He was caught and thrashed by the residents. Vicky was
then taken to the police station by a group of 40 blind students.
This is the fourth thief they caught in recent months, said Sandesh,
the group leader. A postgraduate student of psychology in Jabalpur
University, Sandesh said they heard a thump near the boundary wall
followed by a soft creaking of the door in the hall and got no
response when they demanded to know the identity of the intruder.
Soon, all the boys were at their feet making a circle around the
suspect who tried but failed to break through the human wall.
"We are overwhelmed by our achievements," said Sandesh. The incident
proves that blind people are as good if not better as their able
bodied brethren and a liability on none, he said.
"The boys' hostel had become an easy target for neighbourhood ruffians
till we all decided to take the matter into out hands," said Hidayat
Ali, a BA student. Ali said that even though the hostel was run by the
department of social justice, it has no supporting staff.
He said that two buildings were rented to accommodate blind students
in Jabalpur. The other hostel is 1.5km away. Ali said that his friends
and he are lucky because those in the other building have to walk to
the daily to theirs for meals as there is only one mess.
Accidents are pretty common but we have learned to take them in our
stride, he said.
The hostellers have made a representation to the district magistrate
and to senior officials in department of social justice. They went as
far as Bhopal to demonstrate but have had no luck so far.
Things began to turn for the worse over past three-four months when
the boys found their belongings especially mobiles vanishing. Then the
DVD used for their studies also got stolen one night. And as the
police refused to lodge FIR they decided to guard their property and
conducted a few mock drills. On Hanuman Jayanti and Dussehra night
they could nab three thieves, said Sudhakar Pandey, a PG student.
"Each time after catching the culprit we take him to the police
station but they ask us to come back with the warden. Since we have no
warden our complaints don't get registered," he said.
"The department had deputed a watchman with a missing arm to the
hostel but he is not around much," Sandesh said.
With the Vicky episode, the neighbourhood thieves would not dare to
venture near the hostel, this avid fan of Clinton Davis, the blind
wrestler from New Zealand, triumphantly claimed.
The humour of the situation is not lost on this gutsy bunch. "I feel
really sorry for poor Vicky," said Ali, with a smile, "for a bloke
with perfectly normal eyes, he could not see it coming".
Source: Times of India.
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