Following Salman Khan, Neel Chatterjee, Aliston Pereira with 5 of his friends have come under media’s light for hit and run cases. Last night, Aliston Pereira and his friends, who were in high spirits , shattered the dreams of 20 poor souls sleeping peacefully in the pavement of Bandhra’s Carter road, Mumbai. Six of them were killed and fourteen of them injured. The accused were returning from a five star hotel’s night club and were on their way to a friend’s birthday party. Aliston Pereira, the man behind the wheels, was drunk. When asked about this gory incident, he says that his car lost control due to a mechanical problem and ran into the construction workers. A bottle of liquor was also found in the accused’s car. Pereira and his friends were took into police custody. He is booked for culpable homicide not mounting to murder and others are booked under the Bombay Prohibition Act. Pereira is still under police custody and his friends are released out on bail.
In September 2004, Stephanie was killed on the road by drunken youths. Chennai was shocked by the incident. And since then the police has tightened the security measures a bit more and is a bit harsh on the night clubbers. In a way, it is good as it guarantees a safe environment for people to live. I have seen myself a few of these drunken youths, who race at Marina and Besant beaches in their modified bikes and cars. It is really difficult for the citizens to walk or drive on the roads when these unruly youths go crazy and do all the stunts on roads.
Bike, car stunts in movies and TV ads also inspire young people to try them on roads. Young people fall into the trap that they are super cool
if they are involved in any of these.
A lot of examples include the movie Ghulaam, Rang De Basanti, The recent Apache, Pulsar ads and the list goes on. Not only the media, the parents of these young people are also to be blamed. If they were careful enough in drawing the line of control at certain point, these kind of incidents can be avoided.
One more month, when all the media attention starts to move away from this case, the rich kids will be let out free and they will start clubbing again. The poor as always will hold demonstrations and will go quiet as they cannot stand and fight for their rights.
Where is justice?
Will the rich kids be punished for this gory act?
Will the police tighten up more security and punish drunken drivers?
I have a few suggestions for the police and the people to stop these kind of incidents from happening.
1. On every major road, have check posts and conduct regular checks on people for drunken driving. Especially, near pubs and night clubs, have more people to check. If a person is caught for drunken driving, put him under bars for that whole night and leak the news out to the dailies. This should be done irrespective of the status the person has in the society.
2. A lot people get away by using their high profile contacts when they are caught for drunken driving on the roads. If a person tries to boast his influence by saying Do you know who I am ?
, He should be smacked at least ten times in the back and put under bars. The next time he will dare to think of using it.
3. Close all the pubs and night clubs at 11.00 PM.
4. Canceling of licenses for the joints who serve liquour for minors and are open after the stipulated time. The owners of these joints must be put under bars for at least ten years.
5. Seizing the bikes and cars that are modified or tuned for racing and stunts on road.
6. Curfew for bikes and cars to run after 10.00 PM on New Year’s eve. This way, all the drunkards will shut indoors and gory incidents can be avoided.
In this way, we can build a healthy and safer society. What ya say?
