Criminality has been showing its ugly fangs and people can perhaps absorb the shock of crimes of almost every denomination. Nevertheless, the attack on a wedding party last Saturday, which left a woman dead and many others injured, including elderly guests and children, was too much to put up with. It was an act of unspeakable barbarity even when judged in the context of our murky socio-political reality.

It resembled the desperado attacks by villains in western movies and left the victims in a state of paralytic shock. The injured had to be sent to five or six hospitals after a marriage ceremony turned into a scene of bloodletting. It must have been a blood-curdling nightmare to the survivors.

Though it is futile to ask why such a beastly crime was committed, we have to accept the truth that even a wedding party is no longer safe in the maze of lawlessness. The most common inference is that intra-party squabbles of the Jubo League finally found expression in a monstrous crime. Another theory is that a frustrated lover launched the attack. Whatever might be the motive behind the crime, it is evident that criminal activities are assuming an intractable and unmanageable character.

It is quite noticeable that political finger-pointing has begun well before the investigators could even say anything about the identity of the criminals. That does not help the cause of politics or smooth investigation. The only thing that premature and motivated comments on a crime of grave social concern can achieve is further distancing of the political parties.

Most people believe that their security is something that the existing law enforcing system cannot ensure and such belief will only be bolstered when gangsters killed people at the time and place of their own choosing with reckless abandon.

The dastardly crime has laid bare the helplessness of people in the face of a steady rise in criminal activities. It is time the law enforcers acted decisively against such desperate elements who seem to believe that they can get away with anything and everything.