A crime with a pattern!
A couple of days’ ago, the prime accused in Pune hit-and-run incident—in which two promising techies were killed—submitted his 300-word essay as part of a precondition outlined by Juvenile Justice Board for his bail. The teen—son of an influential builder—mentioned the importance of assisting accident victims. Ironically, within days, the son of a prominent politician in Maharashtra has allegedly killed a woman under the influence of alcohol while the husband of the deceased survived with injuries.
Unlike the Pune incident accused, the accused in the Worli hit-and-run case, Mihir Shah—son of Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) leader Rajesh Shah—is not a juvenile; laws will certainly be stricter for him. Except for this dissimilarity, the two cases share strikingly similar abstracts. Both the accused were returning under alcoholic influence from party. Both had taken the wheels from their drivers. Both showed extreme insensitivity towards the accident victims; in the Worli incident, the accused is reported to have dragged the victim for around 2 km on his car bonnet before flinging her off on the road. Both had their fathers, family and driver covering up for the incident—including tampering with evidence. This list of similarities is meant to provide an idea of the pattern that keeps repeating itself. The influence of wealth and power takes over human conscience—cutting lives short and shattering entire families brimming with hopes, affections, aspirations, and dreams apart. A sense of impunity arising out of familial wealth, and bolstered by the assumption that there potential misdeeds will be covered up by their powerful fathers, allows such youth to take the risk—to play with lives and the law, to drive under the influence of alcohol, to abscond after the accident and so on so forth.
However, it will be utterly vague to put all the blame on wealth and power influence. There is a confidence that legal proceedings may be tweaked if need arise, that people holding authority will aid in their rescue, and that things will be fine eventually. The source of this confidence is not misplaced. Indeed, there are loopholes in legal proceedings and administrative set-ups. These must be plugged strictly to deny the sense of impunity and cull the spirit of nonchalance.
As per NCRB data, on average, 131 hit-and-run cases were recorded daily in 2022. The total cases registered increased from 47,028 in 2018 to 47,806 in 2022. In two of the past five years, the conviction rate had stayed under 50 per cent. The exceptions were 2020 and 2021, with rates of 58.1 per cent and 51.9 per cent, respectively. The low conviction rate is a cause of concern. In the present case, while the main accused is absconding, his father and car’s driver have been arrested for helping the accused. A case has been registered under BNS Sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 281 (rash driving), 125B (causing grievous hurt), 238 (causing disappearance of evidence of an offence or giving false information to protect an offender), and 324-4 (committing mischief causing loss or damage between Rs 20,000 and Rs 1 lakh), as well as Sections 184 (dangerous driving), 134A (failure to take the injured to the hospital), 134B (failure to inform the police), and 187 (punishment for offences related to an accident) of the Motor Vehicle Act.
Terming the incident to be “unfortunate and painful”, Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde has asserted that “everyone is equal before the law and every incident is the same before the government.” The hope that his words are complied with in full measure is the only hope.
