Contd from Part I
On 17th July we are at the Police station, the witnesses are called. Waited for 5 hours. They don’t turn up inspite of several reminders (They are from the adjoining township). These are the same set of people who had been pressurizing the Police to arrest the so called accused (read my friend) and had also been threatening them that they would bring out the matter in the media and highlight the lackadaisical attitude of the Police. In the meantime, we are given to understand that the victim is still lying in a hospital with a fractured leg. Looking into the reports, we discover that only the vehicle number has been given, no reference to any make or model or colour of the vehicle has been made except for the statement of one person, who mentions it was a Maruti. (Now you can understand what that Maruti means). And look at the vagueness of the reports and statements! But the Police still chases the owner of AB02CD1234. The witnesses cite different reasons at different points of time in favour of their inability to turn up at the police station.
We are again called on 20th to the Police station. This time the victim, a young boy, with fractured leg with 3 rods planted on his leg, is waiting for us at the Police station in an ambulance. Still the prime witness has not turned up, for reasons best known to them. On being asked, the victim says it was a Jeep like vehicle resembling Mahindra Armada or Bolero that had hit him head on while he was riding his Activa. He had been dragged by the vehicle for quite a distance before falling by the side. The vehicle had fled away after that and didn’t wait for a moment. The victim and the witness had noted down the vehicle number from the back side. He is still sure about the last four numerics but now confesses, he might have erred on the series. Another important thing that we noticed is that the statement of the witness wherein it was stated that it was a Maruti, was conspicuously missing from the file that day. Now you can understand this statement had been recorded after the Police came to know that the number being recorded was that of a Maruti car and after seeing the condition of the Maruti 800 car that was allegedly involved in the accident, they removed the statement because if a Maruti 800 were to hit someone the way it did, smashing the Honda Activa and the victim lying in hospital for 2 complete months, it would be easily recognized.
And now the complainant has different stories to tell. They say they had mentioned Jeep in their initial statement, but now that statement was nowhere to be found.
For 2 months the full attention of the Police was focused on a person who is innocent, and that has been proved. The culprit is at large still and I am sure the way the Police has been going about the case, he will never be caught. Now they say they would be looking for the same number in other series. I don’t know how many more innocent people would be roped in and how many times that incapacitated victim would have to come to the Police station to identify the vehicle.
While talking to the DCP, we had suggested that the various toll nakas all round Mumbai should not be just money sucking points. They should have vehicle number registering systems with CCTVs so that it could be of immense benefit while tracking down vehicles involved in such hit and run cases.
My friend and his family are now relieved of the mental tension that had given them so many sleepless nights. But the question is if educated people like us get harassed to such an extent for no fault of ours, what would happen to the uneducated mass? Why doesn’t the police apply a little bit of common sense while dealing such cases? Why is a common innocent man so vulnerable? Although there was enough sense of relief amongst us, this gave us an insight to the way our law enforcing bodies work!
