The killing of two students of a city college and fatal injuries to 12 others is not only painful but a searing national shame for our failure to do anything about careless killing by bus and truck drivers. The lives of two young students with so much hope and so long to live were extinguished by the reckless driver of the bus who knew that as drivers they are protected from police action.
We have Ministers who do not feel accountable to the people and who think to be in power is their birth right and there is nothing that can stop them treating our young ones so unkindly. This is not the first incident when boys died so helplessly.
The truth is our children are getting killed and tortured in so many other ways. They can be killed easily calling them terrorists. They can be beaten up and put to jail if they protest to have a rational quota system for their fair share of government jobs. They can be killed as drug addicts. And many of otherwise responsible senior citizens are happily busy defending the incompetence of those in power because of their own selfish reasons.
The Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan could not wait to expose the inherent inhumanity within him to say, “A road crash has claimed 33 lives in India’s Maharashtra, but they do not talk about it the way we do.” He knows however cruel he appears to others, he must defend the government.
It also so happened that the bus directly responsible for killings is owned by one of his relations. It is learned that the Prime Minister disapprove the Ministers reaction. But the government needs his likes. No reaction came from the Minister of Roads and Highways.
Nobody believed that lies will not prevail and real killers will not go unpunished. But that is not important to us. We shall talk about responsible government of competent people.
We have pointed out recently in this column that most of the bus and truck owners are retired police officers or politically connected powerful people. The condition of buses was so devastating that no responsible officers will allow them to ply. They are no less than twenty years old and in poor maintenance condition. The drivers are not well trained and even their helpers are often allowed to drive the buses and trucks to learn driving.
This failed state of affairs in transport sector is not new. That these old and shattered busses are seen in the roads of the capital city carrying with overloaded passengers is itself a proof of callousness of our authorities.
In the rightness of the things we demand not only the bus driver and others directly responsible for the murder of two young students to be punished as killers for their callous driving, but also heads of those authorities must role who are enjoying facilities at public expenses but are thoroughly incompetent to make roads safe. We want to see new buses in the capital city without delay. We also want to see competent people for the right jobs. But we shall not be listened.
We fully support and sympathise the cause of the students who lost two of their closest friends. At the same time we are ashamed for our failure as a nation to put things right in the country.
