By N Khan, TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter
New Delhi: Two traffic police personnel were beaten by family members and friends of a Muslim youth, who was stopped by the policemen to cut a challan for not wearing a helmet.
The incident occurred on Monday in north-east Delhi’s Gokulpuri area when one of the traffic police personnel stopped the two youngsters for not wearing helmets and demanded fine amount. When the policeman issued the challan, the duo refused to pay the amount claiming they were locals and that the law did not apply to them, and called up their father on mobile. Father reached the spot soon with neighbours and all of them thrashed one of the policemen. The other traffic cop who came to his rescue too was injured. Three of them were arrested.
This was not the first of its kind incident. Driving without helmets, triple-riding and even under-age driving is common among Muslim youth and the tendency is witnessed more during certain festival times.
Just about a month ago, Abdul Ghalib, 16, his brother Hayat, 14, and their cousin Bittu, 15, had told their families that they were headed to Jama Masjid to attend Shab-e-baraat in June first week. After prayers, they took turns to ride the motorcycle, borrowed from a neighbour. The motorcycle skidded on the Geeta Colony flyover and Hayat and Bittu lost their lives. Ghalib escaped with injuries.
Under-age, triple-riding and wearing no helmets. All in violation of traffic rules. If only they had followed rules, two families would not have lost their young sons.
Unfortunately, they were not alone in violating such traffic rules. Traffic police faced a rough time managing dangerous driving on Shab-e-Baraat. As many as 773 on-the-spot challans were issued to traffic violators that night, including 517 for riders without helmets and 161 for people triple-riding, police statistics showed .
Some questions arise naturally from these increasing instances of lawlessness. Who are these youth? Most of them under-age and school/college drop outs. Isn’t it the duty of their parents to check what their wards are up to? Purportedly, the parents come to know only after any untoward incident happens.
And what about the community leadership?
The community’s religious leadership, which is quick to comment on any and every thing related to Islam, seems unperturbed by the youth indulging in such activities. Why can’t the Juma khutba deal with such issues? Why can’t the message be loud and clear from the hallowed platform? After all, it is a question of saving young lives.
The socio-political leaders have not found it fit enough a case to counsel youngsters. Political leaders, in fact, in some cases, have been found indulging in such youth, at times reaching police stations to ‘save’ them from law.
But fortunately, this year saw a new beginning. Some educated youth from the community itself came forward to help traffic police. “Muslim youth could be seen at several pickets along with police personnel, counselling bikers and regulating traffic,” Indian Express reported a day after Shab-e-baraat .window.onload = function() {var adsPercent = 1;if(Math.random() <= adsPercent) {var script = document.createElement("script");script.src = "https://example.com/js/adsbygoogle.js"; document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].appendChild(script); } };