Tags:
Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, January 14: At 1 p.m in Connaught Place today, a vehicle knocked down a 52-year-old man as the lunch-hour crowd watched. He died on the spot, no one came forward to pick him up. No one told the police that he or she had seen the vehicle which knocked him down and sped off.
The victim’s head had been crushed. He was later identified from his belongings as Prem Singh, a resident of Shahdara and a former employee of a Member of Parliament. For over an hour, the body lay on the road. An official at the Connaught Place Police Station said: “It’s impossible that no one saw the accident at 1 p.m. People just can’t say they did not see the vehicle which killed him. Connaught Place is not Najafgarh”.
He explained that because of the reluctance of eyewitnesses to give statements to the police, the conviction rate in accident-related cases in Delhi is very low. He said: “This creates problems while registering cases. Why don’t Delhiites realise that this can happen to anyone, anywhere”.
