Bring Pune killer, father to justice

Many important aspects of a crime, like individual culpability, family responsibility, and social impact and circumstances are involved in the killing of two persons by a teenager who drove a luxury car and ran over them in Pune this week.

It is difficult to consider a 17-year-old boy who drank liquor at a pub and then proceeded to drive his Porsche car recklessly without a driving licence as someone who deserves to receive only a mild rap on the knuckles because he’s still technically a juvenile offender.

But the initial response of the police and the system was to treat it as even less than a traffic offence and bury the case under a 300-word essay on road safety to be written by the offender. But he has now been arrested and more serious charges have been invoked after a public uproar. The family, which tried to soften the case, has also been proceeded against. 

There is scant case for considering the boy as a minor and shielding him from the consequences of his actions when the offence is so serious. The Juvenile Justice Act provides for treating him as an adult because he has committed a “heinous offence”.

He has now been booked under sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Motor Vehicles Act. The father of the teenager, who is a rich and prominent realtor, should also face the law. He handed over the keys of the car to the teenager well knowing that he did not possess a licence and was going to attend a party.

An attempt was also said to have been made to make out that the driver of the family was at the wheel and not the teenager. This however failed as the driver has himself denied he was in the car. 

From the beginning, there were attempts to weaken and sabotage the case. The teenagers’ blood samples were taken for testing after a lapse of over eight hours of the accident and this would probably weaken the charge of drunken driving.

The local MLA visited the police station where the teenager was taken after the incident at 2.30 AM after a call from the boy’s father. There are many who should be held accountable for the accident and the chain of events that led to it. The personnel of the restaurants that served liquor to the underage teenager are part of the chain.

The human, or rather inhuman, side of the case is glaring. The family reportedly tried to suppress the case and there was no expression of remorse or apology to the families of those who lost their lives. The nexus between money, power and police should not be allowed to obstruct the wheels of justice in this case. Neither the boy who drove the car without a licence and under the influence to such devastating effect nor his father, who gifted him the car and let him drive, must escape justice.