Day Light Robbery in Thimphu

It was about 3:15PM, Tuesday, 18/08/2009, I was waiting for the 3:30PM City Bus. Suddenly I heard a screaming voice of a woman. She was almost crying and her eyes were red, filled with tears and she looked restless. She was calling someone and talking in English. I overheard her, "I lost my cello phone!!! Just now! I lost, just now wai". She then broke down again. I could not help than to asked her about the incident. She said she was in the bus a little while ago,she put her mobile in her handbag. She was expecting a call from someone. She then looked into her bag after sometime and found out that her cell was missing. She tried to find out but could not. She then went out of the bus immediately and met one of her friends and asked her to give her mobile. She them immediately tried to make calls to her cell. To her surprise, she found out that her cell was switched off. This made her even worse to think and hope of getting her cell was almost impossible. She again broke into tears and told me that she paid more ten thousand to buy the cell and contains many important contact numbers and personal short messages. This is only one such case where a broad daylight robbery take place in the capital. There are rumors that even birthday cakes are stolen from the car parked near their houses. It has been observed that these daylight robbers steal anything they can. It ranges from dried meat to clothes hung on the ropes to motor vehicle parts to electrical appliances to mobiles to shoes and slippers kept outside the door steps. Therefore, it is the sign of urban crimes on rise and expected to rise even further with increase in more number of youths finding difficult to find jobs and rural-urban migration still taking place at high rate. So lets be prepared to lose anything unless we are more vigilant all the time.