Crimes down as Ramadan lull kicks in
CAIRO: The past few days witnessed a lull in crime that some have attributed to the spirituality of Ramadan. While the religious aspect of the holy month cannot be denied, the pacifying affects of the rigors of fasting combined with the congested TV schedule should also be taken into account. Even though the past few days have been unusually quiet, a few incidents have made the crime pages.
In the industrial area of Port Said, a huge fire destroyed a major paint factory. The fire left 45 laborers, two officers and five security members injured. Losses are estimated at between LE 25 million to LE 50 million. Investigations excluded any intentional criminal action. The owner of the factory said that his factory is insured and the real loss is in the export contracts that he won’t be able to fulfill and the possibility of 1,200 laborers being laid off.
More than 2,000 laborers organized a strike at the petroleum company Gapco . They asked for reforms in their contracts granting them better salaries, proper vacations and better medical services.
A famous eye hospital will be closed for a year after a court judgment. Those in the hospital have been found guilty of causing blindness in eight patients.
Just as fasting increases spirituality, it can also cause loss of concentration. People in Al-Ibrahimeya were shocked when a dead body of a student plummeted off Al-Ibrahimeya Bridge onto them.
A laborer died in a fall from the ninth floor of a building in Al-Giza. His fellow workers attested that he had lost his equilibrium while working. In a similar accident, a man fell from a hotel room balcony, sustaining injuries. He said that he had been alone and had fallen off the balcony due to a bout of dizziness.
In Al-Menufiyya two million counterfeited euros were seized from a Cameroonian businessman. The African businessman allegedly was distributing the forged money in other Delta governorates.
Traffic accidents always figure prominently in the crime pages. Only 48 hours after the death of 20 people in a tragic accident in Upper Egypt, 13 others were killed in another accident on the same road. An additional eight were injured and transferred to Al-Menya Hospital for medical attention.
An academic competition over a doctorate degree between two assistant teachers at Ain Shams University leapt over the barriers of academic propriety. One of the assistant teachers was accused of sending e-mails to the rest of the staff claiming that the other assistant teacher’s wife was involved in suspect relations with officials at the university, facilitating her husband’s scholarship in London.
Police forces stormed the famous Madboli bookstore downtown and collected 280 copies of a book called “The Modern Sheikhs and the Making of Religious Extremism (Al-Sheiukh Al-Modern Wa Sena’et Al-Tatarof Al-Deeni). According to the owner of the bookstore this was done at the request of the Islamic Research Academy.
In a strange incident, sextuplets were born in Assiut. The mother’s happiness was short-lived, however, as all six babies died within 72 hours of their premature birth.
