Delhiites kill over petty issues: HC concerned
This worrying trend has caught the attention of the Delhi High Court too which expressed concern while upholding the conviction of a couple Sampat and Shanti who set afire a nine-month pregnant woman Rajni on July 9, 1998, at Mongolpuri. Harish V Nair reports.
Arif worked at a juice shop in Khayala, West Delhi, till he stabbed a customer to death in August this year.
Raj Kumar smokes beedis. He killed a man in September when he was refused a smoke, at Bapa Nagar in Central Delhi.
The two incidents demonstrate how Delhiites are increasingly losing cool over trivial issues, going to the extent of committing murders.
This worrying trend has caught the attention of the Delhi High Court too which expressed concern while upholding the conviction of a couple Sampat and Shanti who set afire a nine-month pregnant woman Rajni on July 9, 1998, at Mongolpuri.
This was following an argument over drawing of water from a tap in the area.
The woman who suffered serious burns gave birth to a dead child the next day. She died 10 days later.
The judges of the high court wondered whether the “overcrowding and congestion” in the city was affecting people’s minds in the wrong way.
“It may sound most imprudent or unnatural for a person to set his adversary on fire over a trifling matter,” said the high court bench headed by Justice Pradeep Nandrajog.
“But the over-crowded city of Delhi is increasingly defying rational behaviour.”
“Two out of three incidents of homicide being dealt with by us have been triggered over the most trivial issues such as the victim not lending a paltry sum of Re 1 to the accused or the victim taking just a few seconds to remove his chair or stool from a public street and the accused wanting to move further ahead in the twinkle of the eye,” the court added.
As per latest police statistics, around 16 per cent of the 251 murders in the capital this year (till July) were results of sudden provocation over trivial matters.
A man was killed in Civil Lines in February this year following a quarrel over using the toilet.
A man murdered his colleague’s six-year-old child for not allowing him to enter the house in Kapashera on February 20.
Another murder on a petty issue was reported on February 12 when a man mediating between two fighting parties was killed.
An altercation following a minor collision between two vehicles in Anand Parbat on March 24 also led to another killing.