India’s Lost Generation: How School Dropouts Are Fueling a New Wave of Crime

By Dark Crime Diaries | Investigative Crime Report | August 2025

On a rainy July evening, Rohit Sharma waited at a crowded bus stop in Pune. His phone glowed in his hand as he checked WhatsApp. Out of nowhere, two boys on a speeding scooter grabbed it and disappeared into the traffic.

Within 30 minutes, Rohit’s ₹20,000 smartphone had been sold to a grey-market dealer in Budhwar Peth. When police later caught the culprits, they weren’t hardened criminals. They were two teenagers, aged 16 and 17, who had dropped out of school during the pandemic lockdown.

Police interrogations revealed that the boys had stolen 19 phones in one month, each theft funding cigarettes, cheap alcohol, and eventually drugs. “They are not yet hardened criminals,” a Pune police inspector admitted, “but without intervention, they’ll become the next generation of gangsters.”

This incident was not isolated; it was a glimpse into a disturbing national trend.

Lockdown’s Invisible Casualty: Education

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, schools across India shut their doors. Classes shifted online, but for millions of children in slums, rural villages, and poor urban neighborhoods, the lack of smartphones, internet, and digital literacy meant they were effectively cut off.

• UNESCO estimated that nearly 247 million children in India were affected by school closures.
• By 2022, official government data (U-DISE+) confirmed that 15 lakh children had permanently dropped out of school. Experts suggest the real number is likely double.

This mass exodus from classrooms created a dangerous vacuum. Instead of textbooks, children turned to street life. Instead of teachers, gangs became their role models.

From Dropouts to Criminal Recruits

Pune’s Snatching Rings

The case of Rohit Sharma’s phone is part of a wider pattern. Police in Pune have documented dozens of juvenile gangs specializing in phone snatching. Once stolen, phones are immediately sold in black markets or dismantled for parts. The profits are small, often less than ₹5,000 a phone, but for teenagers with no income, it becomes a quick way to earn.

Police reports show that nearly 40 minors were arrested in 2022–23 for similar crimes in Pune alone. Most had a common story: dropping out of school during lockdown, fractured families, and peer pressure to “earn.”

Bengaluru’s Teen Drug Couriers

In 2023, the Narcotics Control Bureau in Bengaluru busted a network in Whitefield where teenage boys delivered small packets of MDMA and marijuana. Many were 16 to 18 years old, carrying schoolbags to avoid suspicion.

One boy confessed during interrogation:

“I used to attend online classes with a borrowed phone. When classes ended, I lost interest in studies. A local dealer offered me ₹500 per delivery. It felt easy. I thought What’s the point of school?”

The police found that most of these boys had dropped out during lockdown and had no stable routine. For drug cartels, they were perfect recruits: cheap, disposable, and unnoticed by society.

Delhi’s Gang Pipeline

In Delhi’s northeast districts, police traced a sudden rise in chain-snatching and bike thefts back to teenagers. On the surface, these were petty crimes. But deeper investigations revealed that bigger gangs were deliberately recruiting dropouts, offering them a share of loot while grooming them for more serious crimes like carjacking and extortion.

One juvenile officer in Delhi told us:

“The street is the new school. Older gangsters are the new teachers. These kids are learning crime step by step: first snatching, then theft, then armed robbery.”

Liquor Smuggling in Bihar

In rural Bihar, prohibition laws created a thriving black market for liquor. Here, too, dropouts were drawn into crime. In Gaya and Nalanda, police arrested multiple teenagers transporting liquor bottles on bicycles at night. These boys had once attended local government schools, but after lockdown closures, they never returned. Instead, they became part of a shadow economy run by bootleggers.

A schoolteacher in Nalanda lamented:

“We begged them to come back to class. But they say ‘school doesn’t give us food or money, the liquor trade does.’”

Why This Crime Wave Is Different

Historically, juvenile crime in India existed, but this wave is unique because it is:

1. Digitally driven – With stolen phones, crimes now extend into UPI fraud, social media scams, and hacking.
2. Economically desperate – Families struggling with post-pandemic debt often turn a blind eye, even benefiting from children’s illegal earnings.
3. Organized recruitment – Gangs, drug networks, and bootleggers now actively target school dropouts as a new labor pool.

Police & Society on the Back Foot

Police across India admit they are struggling. Juvenile detention centers are overcrowded. Counseling programs exist but are underfunded. A Pune police officer said:

“We don’t just arrest criminals. We are arresting children who should be in classrooms.”

Meanwhile, NGOs warn that unless rehabilitation and re-enrollment programs are expanded, this “lost generation” will form the backbone of organized crime by 2030.

Victims Twice Over

This crisis has two sets of victims:

1. The immediate victims are citizens robbed, attacked, or cheated.
2. The children themselves, who lost not only an education but also a future, pushed into crime out of desperation.

The streets have become their classrooms, but the lessons they are learning are violent and irreversible.

Conclusion: Crime Born from Abandonment

The pandemic didn’t just close schools; it opened a pipeline to crime. From the back alleys of Pune to the drug hubs of Bengaluru and the rural highways of Bihar, India is witnessing a slow-burning crisis.

If education loss remains unaddressed, the country risks raising a generation where classrooms were replaced by crime networks, and lessons replaced by loot.

The choice is stark: rebuild schools and rehabilitation programs, or watch crime statistics become the only report cards this generation ever gets.

Sources (Verified)

• Ministry of Education (U-DISE+ Dropout Statistics, 2022)
• National Crime Records Bureau (Juvenile Crime Reports, 2022–23)
• UNESCO & UNICEF, Impact of COVID-19 on Education in India (2021–22)
• Times of India, “Pune teen gang arrested for 19 phone thefts,” July 2023
• Indian Express, “Bengaluru police bust teen drug peddling network,” Sept 2023
• Hindustan Times, “Delhi gangs recruiting school dropouts,” Feb 2024