A Society In Decay

A young man lying on the road, bleeding from his head and nose, shaking like he is going to die the very next moment, what do you do? Run. Everybody runs, but in which direction, in a direction towards the person in need or in the direction which makes you run away from your responsibility, your consciousness and your duty. I don't know what somebody else would do, but when me and my friend came out after having lunch, we see a man in the same situation and the only thing that we did was just run towards the person and try to help him. As we try to help the man, another one joins and hold his nose which just somehow does not stop bleeding. My first reaction was to call up 112, and as I am holding the cell with one hand and trying to stop some vehicle, it was shocking to see people not bothering even a bit to stop and help the guy in desperate need. Soon I get online with cops and try to explain the situation, and give the address, and as I am asking for an ambulance from them an auto stops which is ready to take the guy in. My friend, Taran, decides to go along with him, while I decide to get police involved for two reasons.

1) I thought that this guy had been hit by a vehicle and the guy had escaped.

2) I have been in a situation before and I think I have read enough of news wherin doctors have refused to give proper medical attention and the people have died waiting for one stupid police complaint to be registered.

There was a bike lying on the road, and I thought it was this guys bike and I started to move it to a safe place, I take the keys with myself, just then another guy who has few bruises on his face and arms comes and demands the key from me, as when I ask this guy if he was on the bike with this guy, people start shouting that "NO!, this guy was on the bike and he is the one who hit him!!" I decide not to give the key to the guy and tell him to wait till the police comes. And, sure after sometime I see on cop on his bike nearby and somehow it starts to slow down during the place where the crowd had gathered.

Me: Sir, there has been an accident, and this guy here was driving fast and he hit another guy. The guy was badly hit and we have sent him to the hospital.

Cop: O.K, where is the guy?

[The guy comes in]

Cop: You were driving the bike?

Guy: Yes. This guy has taken the key from me.

Cop: Why have you taken the key?

Me: I don't want this guy to go, he was driving fast, and the guy in hospital might die.

Guy: Sir, I have some bruises, can I go to the doctor?

Cop: Yes.

Me: What? You are not going to do anything.

Cop: Don't worry, "YOU" note down his number, there is a police station nearby, I want you to go there and register a complaint.

Me: What?, you are a cop, won't you do anything?

Cop: I said don't worry, now give me the key.

Probably one of the stupid things that I have done, I gave the key to the cop, and soon, he gives the key to the next guy, and asks him to "Go!!" and as I am standing there surprised the guy goes off in the bike and so does the cop. Trust me, for the next few moments I was completely shocked at what had just happened, the cop should have arrested the culprit right there, right then, why, why, why? The fact is that during the entire five minutes this cop was there, he did not even bother to get down from his bike to do anything about it.

But, then again, I guess it was too late, I started running towards the police station, and when I reach there and try to register the complaint, the cops somehow were reluctant to file it, I had the number of the bike and I wanted that guy to be stopped wherever he was, but these guys are happy to have the number and say that they would get the address from the RTO, and I should leave it to them, no matter how hard I ask them, no matter how hard I request them, it has no effect on theem none whatsoever, they won’t pursue the vehicle. The incharge ignores me completely when I ask him to explain why the cop gave the key away and let the guy go away.

Not to mention, one another important thing, the cop that came to the scene of the crime was NOT sent by the police station. I realized this as, while I was at the police station, and even though by now the police station which should have been intimated by the control room, these cops had no idea that an accident had happened, and I was already there for about ten minutes and it had already been about thirty minutes since I had called up the control room, these people in police station receive a call and as this cop is noting down the address “State Bank of India, Tata Power Limited”, which is the address I had told the control room as the scene of accident, I realize that it takes more than thirty minutes for the control room to intimate the police station, this despite the fact that I had asked the control room to send some one with an ambulance as soon as possible!!

Is this the attitude? Is it the way the cops should perform their duty? If this is the way they must, then God save our society.

And the people who didn’t stop their car ? What can we say. Yes , that back seat of the car would have got dirty / stained with blood and maybe they would have to pay a few thousand rupees to get it cleaned. Maybe they would have had to waste a few hours or a day or two in the usual police hassles but isn’t it better than carrying a feeling that because of you a guy might have died, or worse tomorrows news paper will carry a news item saying that the same guy died, when you could have had that self satisfaction of saving a life. How many people get that opportunity?

Tarandeep Singh Bharaj
Imanpreet Singh Arora

Update: Several People have been asking me what happened to the guy, we will be writing about it soon.