For all their inefficiencies, shortcomings, lethargies and despite the presence of a large number of corrupt individuals who very often derail developmental projects being taken up, we cannot help but sympathise with the Catch-22 situation that Government employees are caught in today.

It may be a co-incidence but it was a cruel co-incidence that a few days after the Engineers of the Public Works Department issued a declaration that they would be constrained to resign from their jobs if the pressures mounted on them are not stopped, five officials of the same department including four Engineers have been kidnapped from along the Imphal-Moreh route by cadres of an underground organisation.

As reported, the five officials were abducted by the armed men, while they were inspecting the Imphal-Moreh road ahead of the proposed visit of the Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh to the border town. At the moment it as yet not clear who is behind the abduction or why the officials have been taken into custody by the armed men. However what we can say with a certain degree of confidence is that it will not be for any pleasant reason.

Surely the officials could not have been taken away against their wishes to discuss things over a cup of tea with the leaderships of the group which abducted them.

As abducting officials, drivers from the highways, kidnapping children for ransom etc have become quite a common fare in Manipur, the people may have developed a certain degree of immunity to such disturbing news so much so that such news no longer send any shock waves across the State.

This is not the first time that officials have been abducted for one reason or the other, but the seeds of such an unhealthy trend were sown a long time back and it would be wrong to point the finger at any one single armed group or organisation.

There have been cases too where renegades and down right criminals have kidnapped children for ransom, taking advantage of the culture of abducting people to strike a deal or two and the story of Lungnila Elizabeth continues to haunt to collective psyche of the people.

Voices of condemnations have been raised against the growing culture of abducting for ransom or to bring the Government to its knees but unfortunately the voices of the people have gone unheeded and perhaps the time has come for the people to go beyond merely condemning such incidents but to take up some pro-active steps to discourage the recurrence of such abhorrent incidents.

Today it is about five officials of the PWD tomorrow it could be anyone. We will be missing the point if we forget to mention the pressure exerted on the Government officials from the political class from time to time. Politicians, under the garb of being the peoples' representatives and clad in their dhotis and Nehru jackets are often known to have exerted immense pressure on the officials to have their way and while such acts of brow beating the Government officials into meek submission is hard to digest, the Government officials too need to be above board and be men and women of character to tell their political bosses to go and take a ride when any unreasonable demands are made.

Perhaps it would do good for all the Government employees to look inwards and study if they have been true to their vocations.

Likewise, the people as a whole too need to develop a strong character to say enough is enough to all the mindless acts that are perpetrated in the name of public interest or at times when anyone crosses the Laxman Rekha.