Sir,
The death of a young girl near Poonch House, Talab Tillo a few days ago is a grim reminder to the fact that things have not changed at all in the city of temples so far as control of road accidents is concerned. The loss of the life of a young girl, who was virtually sandwiched, between two matadors locked in a mad race for picking up passengers. Janvi Gupta was only sixteen and barely a day had passed when her Matriculation results were out. Poor girl never knew that her life would be cut short by two brutes having no regard to human life and for whom five or ten rupees mattered uppermost. This accident like many have become routine here and for public and the department who is entrusted with regulating traffic on the roads such accidents have no human angle; they are just routine. Yes some spontaneous protest or blocking of roads is sufficient and then on the people go to their homes and become mute witness once again ton the gory blood- letting on the roads.
One wonders what has happened to the civil society which has become so immune to bad ways and breaking of laws that they see no cause in rising up and demonstrating their collective displeasure at the way things are being managed especially when it comes to the regulating of traffic on the roads. It is a well known fact that more people have been killed in our state in traffic accidents than they have been killed in terror related activities. The Governor has shown displeasure at the increasing number of accidents. Time is ripe that Traffic Department is sensitized and on roads like Talab Tillo which are congested traffic flow is monitored with diligence. Over speeding should invite punishment. The installation of CCTV will help a great deal. Despite one or two days’ vigil of traffic police on accident prone roads, situation once again turns normal. Here, normalcy means traffic police is disinterested while as overspeeding matadors who are nothing but angels of death continue over speeding. The public in general too has to tell their children to -drive slowly and adhere to traffic rules. But it is sadly a million dollar question when will we all learn to drive safely. Till then God be with us.
Yours etc……
Manik Jain
Talab-Tillo
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