Even as war-like scenes are being reported from virtually every nook and corner of the world with the warring sides using weaponry far advanced for their striking power compared to the hardware of the era of the two world wars, two other ubiquitous activities of people are hogging the column space of dailies of all hues, with India figuring prominently alongside countries in the Middle East. No reader of any daily published in various languages and also viewer of the multitude of television news channels can miss the news with graphic details of acts of rape and terror. One doesn’t have to see movies to know the obnoxious exploits of actors donning the role of a villain, given the dramatic rise in the number of rapists and terrorists all around, unmistakably the real life villains of our times. The profiles of the modern-day rapists have tended to fall into an amazing range from common people to monks in various faiths. The neo-terrorists, going by their ghastly acts of causing deaths, seem to have eclipsed those who had taken to violent ways in the past, to be finally subdued by non-violent indoctrination by luminaries of the land some decades ago.

Social psychologists aver that society provides avenues of committing various uncivil acts and some people take to committing them, unwittingly or otherwise. Deprivation in the extreme and frustration are seen as driving forces for them to drift from orderly living as an aberration. The all-too-familiar compulsions of our times are only getting more intense than any time before.

The trail of terrorists wielding weapons and strategies to rein them in figure prominently in the agenda of many governments with hardly any dent being made in the scale of destruction and devastation resulting from their unchecked action. While the law-makers are mulling stringent laws to deter the rapists from outraging the modesty of women and the law-keeping wings of the State are overwhelmed by the rapidly rising number of assaults on females of different ages, there are many other elements in society holding out threats to its members by their unarmed, yet hurting ways. The urbanites and rustics are at the receiving end of their acts of terror and immortality in diverse ways.

Violators of traffic regulations, encroachers of land with disdain, reckless drivers of wide-bodied buses even on roads within the city limits, neighbours who create ruckus on trivial grounds, outfits staging noisy road shows in pursuit of various causes, the staff in government offices with no work ethics, traders who cheat gullible consumers, and last but not the least, the elected representatives of people betraying public trust are modern-day terrorists.