90 minutes that disgraced Delhi

NEW DELHI: For a city whose roads average one hit-and-run case every week, Mohammed Matibool’s death at dawn on Wednesday would have been just another statistic.

NEW DELHI: For a city whose roads average one hit-and-run case every week, Mohammed Matibool’s death at dawn on Wednesday would have been just another statistic. By Thursday, when CCTV footage revealed how the city went about its business for one-and-a-half hour around and past a dying man at a kerb, the accident and its aftermath had become Delhi’s latest disgrace.

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Matibool was hit hard by a speeding tempo, one of the Capital’s scores of ungainly three-wheeled carriers, as he was walking home in West Delhi’s Subhash Nagar after his night job as a guard. The 35-year-old father of four was going home to get his e-rickshaw—his day job—when he was hit from behind. Matibool bled to death from the resultant injury to his head.

From the deadly impact at 5.40 am to the arrival of a police vehicle at 7 am, Matibool bled to death unattended on the road. In that time over a hundred cars, twice that number of two-wheelers and as many pedestrians went right past the bleeding man.

Nobody stopped. It could have been a murder scene, but nobody called the police either. Only one Delhi resident, a rickshaw-puller, stopped and looked close, then scurried off with Matibool’s cellphone, lying a few feet away where it had fallen. At 6.50 am the police got a call. “Yahan ek aadmi mara pada hai (there’s a dead man on the road here).”

There was a great deal of blood on the road around the head of what by then appeared to be—and most likely was—a dead man, and the police treated it just like it looked: murder.

That took another couple of hours, for the crime scene could not be disturbed till the forensics team was done. The area happened to be under CCTV coverage, and it was only when the footage was reviewed that Matibool was rushed to DDU Hospital, at about 9 am.

He was dead on arrival, killed as much by apathy as the errant tempo driver.

By Thursday evening, the shamed city seemed to be gunning for redemption. Matibool’s body was on its way to his village in West Bengal, the tempo driver, a 25-year-old milkman called Rajesh Gupta, had been arrested, and the thieving rickshaw-puller was being ferreted out.

The Delhi government announced that a ‘good Samaritan policy’ would be brought before the Cabinet soon. Health Minister Satyendar Jain announced that those who help accident victims would be rewarded, saying that people are “unwilling to help because of fear” of police harassment.

The police don’t ag ree. Despite the Supreme Court directing state governments to ensure that no good Samaritan is detained or forced to disclose his or her identity, they say only a few are willing to stand witness.

In countries such as France, Germany and Belgium, failing to provide help to an accident victim is a criminal offence punishable with a jail term of up to 5 years. In India, the good Samaritan policy remains a directive. Saji Cherian, from Save Life Foundation, an NGO whose petition resulted in the Supreme Court directive, said, “Fear of police harassment, detention in hospitals and being sucked into the long judicial process are the three reasons why people do not help. Last week, I helped a victim in Kapashera and within 15 minutes I received a call. When I refused to disclose my name, the cops told me not to be a mahatma (saint).”

A senior police officer said that they have to record witness statements and run background checks as part of the procedure to ensure that he or she is not involved in the accident. “We take their names and numbers so that they can be summoned during trial,” said an officer. Police harassment is an excuse not to help a victim,” one Delhi Police officer said on condition of anonymity.

Delhi registers the highest number of road accident deaths—1,671 in 2104 and 2015 in 2015—in the country.