My dad was a victim of a snatch thief yesterday. The incident happened near our home in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur. He was walking back from the post office along Jalan Telawi after paying some bills.

As he was walking around Jalan Terasek 4, a person on a motorcycle snatched his gold chain from around his neck and rode off. My dad is 75 years old and has some heart problems, so naturally, in an incident like this, there is some impact.

Thankfully, the impact was minor and he only had some palpitations for a while and some scratches around his neck from the chain being pulled.

Apart from that, he seems to be okay when I spoke to him. I got the news from my wife whom my dad had called. My wife immediately called me and I immediately called a friend of ours living nearby to go check on my dad.

My friend was on his way back home and quickly diverted to go check on my dad and spend some time with him. I then received a call from this friend who said that dad was not hurt severely and was feeling okay.

Nevertheless, this snatch theft thing in KL is getting to a ridiculous level. My wife has been a victim of snatch thieves twice in the city area and that too in front of witnesses who would not even bother to go and help.

Now my dad has become a victim in a housing area. A year or so back, on Jalan Telawi itself, another person had robbed my friend's wife of her vehicle at knife point just across from their house.

There are times when I am in KL and am even afraid or am extra careful when I am in a shopping mall like Suria KLCC.

There seems to be little or no effort from the authorities to curb these activities and as the economy becomes worse and more people find it difficult to find jobs, I see the trend of such thefts increasing.

I am sick and tired of living on the constant lookout and in fear. When I was in Europe, if you are street smart and careful, the level of petty theft if generally lower. Then again, you keep hearing of people getting their laptops and purses stolen pretty much in every city in the world.

So is crime in KL higher than other cities? The cops in Malaysia say that it is not and that we have a safer city compared to Tokyo and Hong Kong etc. I do not know what comparisons are used for this checks not do I know whether these facts are right.

What I do know is that things have definitely become a lot worse from the time I was growing up and every year it has been getting worse with a larger proportion than the year before.

What I also know is that a lot of petty crime and snatch theft goes unreported and as such do not become part of the statistics. For example, my dad is not going to make a police report.

Do I blame him for not making a report? Of course I do not. Blaming him would be blaming the victim, no different from how some countries blame a rape victim for being raped and punish them instead.

Maybe that is what we have become - a snatch theft victim deserves to be a victim and it seems like that is how our law enforcement thinks.

I hope for a safe and brighter future for my loved ones - family, friends and pretty much everyone. May the thieves burn and rot in hell but that is not for me to determine - a Supreme Being will determine their fate.