Yesterday at a government girls school in the capital of India, Delhi there was a stampede when rumours spread that there was some sort of electrical short circuit and everyone could be electrocuted. In any other country such a rumour would be laughed off but in India it is not uncommon to hear of high voltage wires falling to the ground in a storm and killing someone. An official enquiry has been announced. Some retired sarkari fellow, who is a friend of some influential politician, will be paid to form a committee, millions of rupees will be wasted, years will pass and by the time the report is ready people will have forgotten about the tragic loss of beautiful young lives. The report will be given to the government at the time and will never be published and the taxpayer will never know what he has paid for. The tragedy happened because the staircase was so narrow that girls got crushed in the rush and died of suffocation and head injuries. The municipality is responsible for checking the standard of construction and safety of buildings but everyone at the municipality is a thief and running after bribes. Municipal workers dig up roads leaving large potholes where drivers of two wheelers are killed or seriously maimed. Manholes are regularly left open and many children die of drowning after falling in. No one is held responsible. No one is charged with murder or punished in any way. All that happens is that some junior fellow is transferred from one department to another. A lot has been written about the Mumbai massacres but the sad fact is that government workers take more innocent lives every year than all terrorists put together. With complete impunity.