It all began when two students of Symbiosis Law College saw a 20-year-old youth bleed from his head to death outside their college in Pune. He was not wearing a helmet.The six who are responsible for changing the system — helmet-wearing is now compulsory in the state — have taken a break from their jobs all over the country and met up in Pune to ponder on the victory. Karnika Sharma, then a final-year student, recalls: ‘‘I could not bear to see it.’’ He was upset and when he talked about it, so were his classmates Sangeet Rai, Vishal Kumar, Rahul Sood, Purvesh Malkan and a junior Ravi Bharadwaj.The accident triggered off an idea to seek legal intervention to make helmets compulsory in Pune. By August 2001, they filed a petition in the Bombay High Court.They slowly began building the case. Soon, it became an obsession. They were referring to law books, compiling statistics from the traffic police and NGOs. They also made trips to hospitals in Pune to find out the number of head injury patients. ‘‘We found that in this city, where the student population is so high and two-wheelers are common, most fatal accident death victims were found to be between the age of 18 and 35 years,’’ says Bharadwaj.Vishal Kumar pipes in: ‘‘We were sure in this city, wearing of helmets would be readily accepted.’’ But they were in for a shock. The HC asked the government to frame a scheme to implement the helmet rule. The government filed an affidavit stating it would enforce the rule in 12 phases beginning with Pune. Within days, protests from student organisations rocked the city and the government backed off.‘‘I don’t know why this otherwise peace-loving and cultured city reacts so adversely to this issue,’’ Kumar says.
