Frequent thefts and violent robberies, mainly targeting
tourists, have tarnished the reputation of Spain’s second-largest city
Barcelona. Populated with over 1.6 million of residents, such criminal
activities enables the locals to form their own crime-fighting patrols.
The Southwestern European city of Barcelona is
harmed by these indictable offences to such an extent that recently
Afghanistan’s ambassador to Spain fell prey to a group mugging who tried to
steal his wristwatch in one of the city centers. By this, he got slightly
injured as well. Again a 91-year-old French woman was hospitalised after
thieves tried to snatch her necklace, causing her to fall. More and above in
the month of June this year, a visiting South Korean public servant died from injuries
she suffered during a mugging.
Taking such incidents into view, the US
ambassodor in Barcelona cautioned its nationals to stay careful while
traversing the province and urged them not to “display signs of wealth
such as wearing expensive jewelry or watches”.
Since July, this European tourist hotspot, has
recorded eight murders which is quite hard to accept of being unusually high
number for a city like Barcelona !
Again in most cases tourists become the easy targets of the
crooks, has also raised concern of city officials and all of them who are
associated to its tourism industry.
In contrary to this, while taking an overview,
the picture shows that the crime rate in Barcelona is much lower than the other
European cities such as London, Berlin and Brussels. But this couldn’t be
treated as an excuse and this “was not enough to justify the alarm that is
being generated”, said Sonia Andolz, an expert on security policies,
Barcelona.
In fact for this condition she partly blames the
boom in tourism the city witnessed since it hosted the 1992 Summer Olympics.
She believes that tourism always draws pickpockets.
The attempts made by some locals in this regard
is certainly praiseworthy, but for Andolz, “Taking justice into your own
hands is not the solution. A citizen without training, without a uniform and
without any controls can never play this role.”
However the City Council recently enhanced its
crime-fighting budget and the regional government has deployed more officers to
the city, including anti-riot units.
