This world of ours is full of one nuisance or another, if we can call it so. Shoplifting is pestering the civilised west, where cameras are concealed and other effective security measures are taken in the department stores to catch the culprits. Shoplifting is confined not only to the young people, who get 'kicks' out of it, but some adults are equally susceptible, due to their mental illnesses.
Shoplifting is also done by the people who cannot afford the luxury of the expensive cosmetics and other 'niceties' of life to keep them in the run of the social lime-light. Luckily, shoplifting is still rare in our society.
Cattle-lifting in rural areas, child-lifting, car-lifting or car-snatching at gunpoint are some common problems faced in our society. Cars snatched at gunpoint journey far and wide in the country and there are places, where there is good market for them. The cars snatched are used by anti-social elements to commit robberies, murders, and kidnapping of the rich or their school-going children for ransom.
The snatched cars are also used to smuggle arms and other contraband goods from one destination to another in the country, leaving the vigilant staff at the various check-points on the highways stunned and agape.
People enter the mosques leaving their footwear outside, lest the dirt sticking to their shoe-soles soil the carpetted floors of the mosque. Shoe-lifting from the mosque is not a new one.
It is also said to exist in some Arab countries. But instead of the locals, the poor immigrants from the 'Third World Countries' get the blame for it. Even carefully wrapped footwear in plastic shopping bags, kept in the wooden or steel racks, are found gone from their place.
While a worshipper is engrossed in his prayers, a shoe-lifter hurriedly finishes his 'prayers' and does not lose time in leaving the mosques, with someone else's shoes, leaving his own worn-out shoes. Thus he easily escapes without being suspected of the offense. The theft of an item like used shoes that too from a mosque, is a most despicable act. Not only the owner is inconvenienced for some time, but the act does not speak well of us as a whole.
Another victim, who was in his 60s, said: "once he attended a famous religious congregation in the country. He was surprised to see that even there shoes were easily exchanged or taken away, if one was not very particular about them." This was attributed by the worshippers to the poor slum-dwellers, who could not afford to buy a new pair of shoes for themselves.
An old 'Moazzin' in our mosque disclosed that it was not only the shoes, but electric bulbs, tube-lights, fans, rosaries, the wall clocks, the deluxe editions of the Holy Quran and other religious works were not spared by the miscreants. What a pity? This has led to keep the mosques locked and opened only at the prayer times.
In some historical monuments and mosques shoes are left in the care of a person for a nominal charge of one rupee or less per pair. On production of the token issued, shoes can be claimed by the owner. Thus risks of exchange of shoes by oversight or their lifting are reduced to zero. This system should also be introduced in the city mosques to curb the menace of shoe-lifting. 'Imams' and 'Ulema' in their routine sermons should high-light thefts from the mosques as a big curse. Beggars and addicts are sometimes found crowding near the mosques for seeking alms. On finding an opportune moment they are also caught decamping with the shoes left out of the mosques. Beggars should therefore, be not allowed with in the distance of 100 or 200 yards from the mosque, so shoe-lifting is not done by them.
We can hardly be proud of our rising standard of life, if the slum-dwellers or the homeless beggars sleeping on the pavements are reduced to shoe-lifting from the mosques just to keep the 'body and soul' together.