A reflection on hate

I was walking down a crowded road the other evening. Groups of boys on bikes, or on feet kept passing by-busy chatting, laughing on their inside jokes and maybe scouting passing girls as potential girlfriends/wives. They were harmless. But the kind of hatred that sprung in my heart was not something I am used to. It was not harmless. "I will kill them even if they as much dared to pass a comment on any girl here." I fumed. My brain stewed in agonising details of the Delhi case. I was plotting how I would hit these boys who were, of course, going to molest someone. I shuddered after some 15 minutes of these thoughts. Not at how unsafe I felt, but what kind of an untrusting, violent being I had become.  
Punishment is essential for a crime, but extreme anger can turn us into beasts ourselves. Wishing death on anyone is never a healthy thought. Heinous crimes deserve no mercy but I wish there was some way in which we could protect ourselves as we meted out a death sentence. Or has the veil of civilization lifted and we no longer can expect that? Or has crime exposed a flaw within all of us, that as we punish, we must suffer.