Are you a SLC graduate? Are you gearing up to join Plus Two? If yes, you need to be on guard. Your each step would be full of risks. You have to navigate the treacherous path of higher education carefully. Immaturity and quick-temperedness can complicate the already confusing journey of higher education, according to experts. Plus Two-age youths mainly face three challenges. 

Cyber Crime
Of late, facebook has become an easy medium not only for communicating with friends but also exchanging learning materials with them. But interactions over such mediums can take ugly turn in no time as has been demonstrated by several incidents in the past. Two friends, who had started discussing lessons from college on facebook, soon became attracted to each other. They fell in love and started exchanging their photos. But they began hating each other in less than a year. One day, the boy posted a photo of the girl that she had shared with him secretly on facebook. Immediately after the girl’s family reported the matter to the Metropolitan Police Crime Division (MPCD), its cyber cell removed the photo from facebook and took the boy into custody. Later, the families of the boy and the girl reached a mutual agreement not to engage in such defamatory acts. 
The MPCD has been receiving up to 10 similar complaints on a daily basis. “Many guardians come to us after their children commit such crimes. First we try to help them sort out the matter among themselves. But it is not possible in every case,” said MPCD Chief Superintendent of Police (SP) Sarbendra Khanal. According to him, lack of awareness of punishment and impacts of cyber crime has contributed to increase such crimes. As per a record at the MPCD, 728 complaints of cyber crime have been registered till last Sunday. 

About 311 complaints were registered at the MPCD last year. The MPCD is the only body that investigates cyber crimes. Posting obscene materials on social media, and sending lurid content through SMS, emails and any other internet venues fall under cyber crimes. Awareness about cyber crimes must be raised among the general public, including youths and guardians, SP Khanal said.  

Drug addiction
Last week, police arrested two persons on the charge of looting properties worth hundreds of thousands of rupees. The investigation revealed that the regular contact and home visit of a girl with another girl of the house owner was behind the theft. A police officer involved in the investigation said that both the girls were drug abusers. Many college students fall into drug abuse, according to SP Bikram Thapa, chief of District Police Office, Kathmandu. The guardians and students themselves should be made aware of the negative impact of drug addiction to curb substance abuse. 

Curiosity and sex crime 
Students who pass the SLC exams consider themselves mature enough to have the freedom to go wherever they want and make new friends. Attraction toward opposite sex is quite natural at that age. They are also full of curiosity about sex and love. They ultimately fall into illicit relations, according to SP Pitambar Adhikari of DPO Lalitpur. Youths coming to Kathmandu from different parts of the country to pursue their studies are mostly vulnerable to sexual violence and crimes, SP Adhikari informed, adding that such crimes are on rise.
 

 
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