Ill-used ingenuity vs creativity

Among an array of footpath displays, bed sheets are no exception. But appearance can be deceptive. Usually a vendor displaying his wares is hardly suspect. But stay cautioned, the entire exercise of selling and buying can simply be playacting. Both footpath vendors and customers have on their mind something more lucrative than the bed sheet they are scrutinising and haggling over its price. By the time they have settled for a price or negotiation, the shop in the background has almost been emptied.
Well, this was a most effective ploy a gang of thieves employed in order to steal from a number of closed shops. Their operation was simple. All they did was to choose a footpath right before shops that remain closed on a certain day as a weekly holiday in the port city of Chittagong. Now someone sat there with bed sheets pretending to be a vendor. Customers -from the same gang-appeared on the spot and feigned to inspect a large bed sheet by spreading it full length. Other members of the gang now started breaking open the locked shutter behind the bed sheet used as a screen. When the job was accomplished, both the vendor and his customers melted in the thin air.
A series of theft was thus committed in the port city in broad daylight and no one had any clue to the crime. Finally a close-circuit camera fixed on a road revealed the way the gang used to operate. On the basis of the camera footage, the police could arrest some members of the negatively resourceful group of thieves. They admitted to the crime and the way it was committed. From the story carried in a leading Bangla daily, it appears that the members are amateur thieves who pull rickshaws, vans and do other menial works. They closed their ranks in order to supplement their income by booties from thievery. No doubt, they are talented people.  
Talent is a gift, an inborn quality not everyone is blessed with. But like most other qualities it can either be positive or negative. Some people do apply their talent for criminal purposes. So ingenious are they that at times they walk miles ahead of the people in uniform or serving intelligence agencies. How they can make the most of the smallest of opportunities to their advantage is best illustrated by this group of thieves in Chittagong city. Thinking out of the box is not everyone's forte. Those who can think of something extraordinary are most likely to succeed. But the fact is some are inclined to use talent for dark purposes. They are compulsive criminals. Had they got any opportunity to redirect their raw talents for positive purposes, life would have changed for the better for them.
Society must share some of the blame for not being caring enough. If the base of educational institutions were strong enough to pursue a policy codenamed 'catch them young', such talents could be spared the abuse it suffers. When education fails to be universal and indifferent, such things happen. A child is born with immense possibility but the socio-economic system, discriminatory as it is, fails to make good use of it. Of the many imperfections society is fraught with, this is the most tragic one.