Journalism of Courage
As at least 20 people looked on silently as Pawan Singh, a 35-year-old taxi driver, was brutally assaulted and stabbed at a CNG station at west Delhi last week. Such were his injuries that Pawan lost his arm after sustaining multiple fractures.
Five men, armed with baseball bats and knives, had attacked Pawan after he rebuked them for jumping the queue at the station.
Singh is the lone bread winner in his family of five. “On August 5, I was heading to my house in Baljeet Nagar and needed CNG in my car. I went to a station near the Kirti Nagar metro station. There was a queue, but suddenly, after waiting for 15 minutes, another car jumped the line and stopped in front of me. I got down and asked the driver of the car why he did so, but he just slapped me,” said Pawan, who is recuperating at Apollo Hospital in Sarita Vihar.
He soon noticed four other men in the car, who, he claimed, were inebriated. These men started abusing him verbally, said Pawan.
[related-post]
“I came back to my car and called the police control room. One of them saw me doing so and tried to snatch my wallet, but I resisted. Immediately, the others also joined him and they took out baseball bats from their car,” he recalled.
Pawan claims that they assaulted him with bats first. “I was screaming for help, but no one came forward to help me, neither the employees nor the customers of the fueling station. They were just watching the whole drama. I then started running for help. They chased me and stabbed me on my hand thrice,” Pawan said. He then lost consciousness.
Pawan’s older brother Manmohan, who was also at the same CNG station, witnessed the assault, but had no idea that his brother was the target.
“I saw a group of boys assaulting a man at the station. I walked up to see what was happening and was shocked to find my brother lying in a pool of blood. Nobody helped him. Everybody just watched him get beaten up. I took him to the Ram Manohar Lohiya Hospital and then informed the police about the incident,” Manmohan said.
According to Manmohan, the police did little to find the men who had beaten up Pawan. “I told the investigating officer about the incident and informed them about the car the assailants were in, but they did nothing. They even registered a case under Section 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and 34 of the IPC at Kirti Nagar police station,” he said. Singh was later shifted to Apollo Hospital in Sarita Vihar by his employer, where doctors had to amputate his right arm while treating him.
“We have arrested one accused and also added Section 307 (attempt to murder) in the existing FIR,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Pushpendra Kumar.
