Title: Crimes by the gentle s*x
GEETHA RAO, TNN, Mar 12, 2004, 01.30am IST
Is crime a male domain? Recent cases don't suggest so. Bharathi Urs, daughter of former chief minister Devaraj Urs, has been charged with allegedly killing her cousin, Chitralekha Urs.
The issue that incited the murder is said to be a sum of Rs 65 lakh that Bharathi had borrowed from Chitralekha.
In December last, Shubha, a final year student at BMS Law College, is alleged to have had her fiance of four days murdered, because she was in love with Arun Varma, a junior in her college.
According to sources, her parents came to know of the friendship between Shubha and Arun, and objected to the disparity in status. So, she was engaged to BV Girish, a software engineer, and her neighbour of 15 years.
They were to be married in April this year. But on December 3, when she was out with Girish on the Intermediate Ring Road, two men attacked Girish with a blunt weapon.
Shubha took the hurt Girish to Manipal hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries. The two men were later identified to be Arun's cousin and a driver. All four, including Shubha and Arun, are in jail now. Shubha has applied for bail.
In another case, Padma Guttedar, wife of excise contractor Ashok Guttedar, is said to have been involved in his murder, since she was in love with a medical student in Bangalore.
All these cases allege involvement of the women in the related crime. But how frequently are women involved in crime? Called the fairer s*x, are they capable of such cold-blooded action?
According to a leading psychiatrist, "Aggressive crime is more common among men than women. One must check whether women in crime have a long history of personality disorder — Were they persistent defaulters? Did they play truant? Did they break rules at home? If they did, then they have a genuine personality disorder. Again, it depends on whether these are one-time offences or repeated crimes. If it's crime committed due to dire circumstances, it will be looked at differently, compared to a situation in which the crime has been committed after much pre-meditation."
But Joint Commissioner of Police, (Crime), Alok Mohan, says, "A criminal is a criminal, whether male or female. There is no difference between the two. It is a question of mindset. In most dowry harassment cases it's usually women like the sister-in-law or the mother-in-law who are involved in the crime. There's no gender difference as far as crime is concerned."
