ARE you violating the established traffic rules in the Charminar city of Hyderabad? Don'tyou have a helmet? No problem! Don'thave driving licence? Don'thave the RC book. No brakes on your vehicles? No lights? No seat belts? Forget about them! These silly things should not bother you especially when you are in Hyderabad. What all you have to do is just press your accelerator as hard as you can and run past the traffic cops in whatever speed you are capable of. Never mind the speed limits. Because they have instructions to be polite to the road users, especially the two-wheeler riders, and there are specific orders to the cops not to stop them. Whatever the violations. It is fun if you are on the run!
Astonishingly, you would be rewarded, albeit posthumously, if you are a violator of traffic rules and cares a damn for law-enforcing agencies. There is a warning that stringent action would be taken against, wait? not the violaters, but against the traffic cops if they behave in an ?imperious manner? with motorists. The traffic chief of the city disclosed that five officers had been charge-sheeted for behaving in a high-handed manner with the motorists. This is the new trend in the city of minarets thanks to the ruling junta'spenchant to be on the right side of those who count at the time of elections.
This is despite the fact that everyday 30 people die on the roads mostly due to the violation of traffic rules that includes not wearing helmets, rash driving etc. In the month of April alone, there were 36,000 cases of driving without helmet, 21,000 cases of signal jumping, 2137 cases of overspeeding, and 2500 cases of cell phone driving.
Now, with the recent directive, it is possible the statstics takes a nose dive, not because road users are going to behave, but no cases will be registered. After all you are not going to stop for the cops to book cases. As it is there is a drop of 20 per cent, mind you not in traffic offences, but in booking cases. In other words, the cops, paid to enforce traffic rules, are looking the other way. Surely this is going to add to the number of deaths on wheels. Who cares? What is important is the sentiments of the vote bank.
Everyday 30 people die on the roads mostly due to the violation of traffic rules that includes not wearing helmets, rash driving etc. In the month of April alone, there were 36,000 cases of driving without helmet, 21,000 cases of signal jumping, 2137 cases of overspeeding, and 2500 cases of cell phone driving.
According to the top traffic cop, A K Khan: ?Police will continue to chase and stop criminals fleeing in the traffic. But standard instructions have been given to traffic police that they should not stop the fleeing traffic rule violator?. So, there will be two categories of traffic rule violators. One is the criminal violator and the other for law abiding. Well, the consequences of violations will be the same?death and disabling injuries. Moreover, will the criminal flaunt a head-band on him proclaiming himself to be a criminal so that the police can stop him.
It is no secret that the Hyderabad city is becoming a hub of ISI agents and other brands of terrorists with the active support of one or two political parties. The recent order is a password for them to roam about the city without being checked as they can always fly past with impunity as one of those regular non-criminal violators. What a mess!
During the third week of May, a motorcyclist and his pillion rider, both without helmets, were racing past a traffic junction in the city. When the traffic cops asked them to stop, they defied and sped away. The cop allegedly threw a lathi on them. The rattled motorist lost balance and hit a road-divider sustaining serious head injuries. The cops shifted both the the motorcyclist and the pillion rider?to the hospital where the motorist died on the same day and the pillion rider a few days later. Unfortunately for the cops, both the victims belonged to the minority community and expectedly, all hell broke loose. The policemen and buses were stoned in the old city. Majlis legislators and leaders staged a ?dharna? in front of the office of the Police Commissioner. There were representations to the Chief Minister to immediately suspend the ?guilty? officers and to shift the Commissioner elsewhere.
The Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekara Reddy went one step ahead of the protestors and gratuitously announced that the persons responsible for the incident would be arrested within 24 hours. He also announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh to the victims? families and a job to one of the family members with the government bearing all the medical expenses. A committee was appointed to probe into the entire episode.
The government did not want to take any more chances and hence the recent orders not to stop traffic violators, but to book them only when they stop at the traffic junctions. So, it is a particular community that would decide what traffic rules should be. If the traffic cops are not expected to check the traffic offence, why have them at all. Let it be free-for-all on the roads. What a precedent the government is trying to set just because it wants to be in the good books of a community even if it means compromising on traffic safety. True, at times the cops harass the road users. It does not mean that the entire force has to be neutralised.
