In the aftermath of the Malta tragedy, the Indian government had decided to crack down on the deeply entrenched mafia operating in illegal migration. It actually discovered that it had an institution called the Protector of Emigrants and dusted it down. A few offending agents operating in places like Jalandhar were traced and cases were booked against some 46 of them. Regulatory procedures were tightened and the general public informed about the perils of seeking entry into foreign countries through illegal ways. But time heals all wounds and dulls all memory, it seems. In the months that followed, the travel agents were soon back, peddling their foreign fantasies with impunity, and there were enough people out there to bite the bait. As for the regulatory bodies, they soon reverted to their earlier, strictly ornamental, function. Indeed, going by the proliferation of unscrupulous, fly-by-night travel agents operating outof makeshift offices in the larger cities of the country, the Maltese Channel story with its 300 victims is a forgotten chapter.

There is another dimension to Monday's death on the sidewalk that needs to be highlighted and that is the complete and total apathy of the urban onlooker even as an elderly man is being brutally manhandled in their presence. The incident happened, not in some dark corner in a nondescript town, but in the best known commercial area of the Capital of the country in the clear light of day. Predictably, even after the old man had succumbed to the trauma he had experienced at the hands of his aggressors, there was no one from the travel agency who would testify to the incident. Callous are the ways of the world. While the cheats, with their powerful political and criminal connections, flourish, the ordinary citizen is left to fend for himself.