Delhi gives cold shoulder to accident victim

Delhiites managed to underscore Independence Day with their insensitivity and indifference on Friday, with scores of people choosing to ignore an unconscious and profusely bleeding accident victim.

Where car drivers refused to transport the man to hospital despite requests by a small crowd gathered around him, an auto-rickshaw driver displayed a larger heart.
He also refused to accept money from this reporter, who happened to be on the spot, for the ride.

Some bystanders at the accident spot on Pankha Road in west Delhi said the victim's motorcycle was hit by a speeding car. But nobody seemed to know for sure.

The victim had sustained fractures on his limbs and his face was smashed.  Incidentally, the police lost track of the victim, and failed to locate him even six hours after the accident. “We don’t know which hospital he was taken to. When we arrived at the spot, the man was not there. We have his motorcycle in our custody and are trying to identify him,” a police officer looking into the case told Deccan Herald.

It is not known yet whether the man survived the accident.

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This reporter was passing through the area on his motorcycle at 3:30 pm when he came across the accident scene in the Delhi Cantonment area.

A small crowd had surrounded the man, lying injured on a road divider. Someone had already informed the police but no police control room van or ambulance had arrived yet.

Several motorcycles and cars of curious onlookers were parked by the roadside. One among them was a middle-aged man who had stepped outside his car.

When this reporter requested him to take the victim to hospital in his car, he refused. He said his family was seated inside.

A similar plea was made by the crowd to drivers of at least two dozen cars that passed. But they slowed down only to take a curious look at the victim. One driver even rolled up the windows of his car when approached.

Finally, about seven or eight minutes later, an auto-rickshaw driver stopped. The injured man was clumsily loaded into the three-wheeler, and the driver headed to the nearby Mata Chanan Devi Hospital.

He was offered Rs 100 but he politely refused. Instead, he requested that he be accompanied by someone to hospital.

This reporter offered to accompany him and headed to park his own motorcycle some distance away at a safer location. But by the time he returned, the auto had left.