You must've heard or read by now that a 20-year-old fashion designing student ran over a homeless woman at Connaught Place in New Delhi. The woman, Phoolwati, was declared 'brought dead' when she was taken to a local hospital. Shreya Aggarwal, who was driving a luxury car - Jeep Compass - was arrested on the spot but was granted bail the same day.
Accidents like this happen more often than we realise, perhaps "accidents" is not even the correct word to use in these situations. Accidents are random mishaps - unlike these "accidents" where there are factors that are a direct cause of the incident. There are four factors that tie all these sorts of accidents together - a luxury car, a young person who is either driving drunk or speeding for the thrill of it. And they occur more often than we would like to believe.
Here are five such incidents similar to the one at Connaught Place over the past year.
-K Rahul Reddy, a 22-year-old from Hyderabad and a post-graduate student at a university in USA, was on vacation when he died in a car crash on June 9 this year. He, along with his friends, was driving at a break-neck speed at night when their Mercedes Benz SUV toppled and came to a halt after a somersault.
-Sachin Gadhari (23) and Sagar Gaikwad (21) died when their SUV (Tata Hexa) rear-ended a municipality truck in Mumbai on May 15. The car was mangled and caught fire on the spot while passer-bys attempted a rescue.
-An Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) on duty at a police barricade was hit by a luxury car at Panchsheel, South Delhi on May 3, 2018. The accused, 21-year-old BBA student Harsh Vardhan, was drunk and was driving back from a party. He ran over the barricade when the ASI asked them to stop for an alcohol test. The police personnel sustained multiple fractures and had to be treated at AIIMS Trauma Centre.
-An Audi and a BMW were involved in a drag race on the Puri-Konark highway on January 14, 2018. The BMW driver, Nanda Kishore, died while the other car fled the scene after Kishore crashed due to heavy fog.
-A drunk 19-year-old youth, Dhruv Bagla, rammed his Mercedes into another vehicle while trying to avoid a traffic check post in Delhi on August 12 last year. Bagla, was arrested but released on bail. The driver of the other vehicle suffered injuries.
India needs a Jolly LLB like scenario to make at least a few people realise the devastating impact that this sort of privileged carelessness causes. The law and order system of a nation is what holds it together and can also push it down the drain if manipulated adversely. As a nation's socio-economic condition develops it should support and build a base for a better and fairer law and order system.
