A not so isolated incident of a person being hit by a rashly driven vehicle in Delhi and left to die has shaken almost everyone.
The shocking part was that those seen passing the area in the CCTV footage did not bother to alert the police. The body was lying at the spot for four hours, before police were informed. The painful realisation after this incident is that humanity is definitely dead.
However, reality is that people just do not want to get embroiled in any unsavory incident, particularly anything involving the police or courts. Countless number of accident victims, particularly those travelling alone, did not get timely help purely because passers-by did not want to face the police and subsequently the courts, in case the issue reached there.
The shock, however, will dissipate after a day or two till some other such incident, highlighting peoples’ callousness and insensitivity, takes place. The only way to ensure that people do not shy away from people in urgent need of medical help is to ensure that a Good Samaritan does not face harassment at police stations, hospitals and courts.
Far too much time has to be devoted by a Good Samaritan at police stations to complete all formalities. The attitude of most of the policemen towards those who decided to lend a helping hand to an accident victim is not a comforting one. Those taking the initiative of quickly rushing accident victims to hospitals also end up feeling irritated, harassed and unappreciated. It is but natural that those who have gone through the traumatic experience at police stations, hospitals and later in courts, would never bother to lend a helping hand to anyone in need.
The Supreme Court had approved the guidelines issued by the Centre for the protection of Good Samaritans at the hands of the police or any other authority in March this year. A bench comprising Justices V Gopala Gowda and Arun Mishra had directed the Centre to give wide publicity to the guidelines, which clearly stipulate that people who help victims of road accidents or other calamities are not harassed in any way.
According to a study by SaveLIFE Foundation, this was expected to greatly change the attitude of bystanders in assisting road accident victims – and thus should result in saving many more lives. The Law Commission of India has observed that 50% of those killed in road accidents could have been saved had timely assistance been rendered to them.
A World Health Organisation report has claimed that “skilled and empowered bystanders play a crucial role in saving lives” and “in order to enable bystanders to come forward and help injured persons, a supportive legal and ethical environment is needed”. It was SaveLIFE Foundation that filed the original PIL and triggered these developments. On the basis of a national study of past cases conducted by it, the foundation submitted that three out of four people in India hesitated to come forward and help road accident victims, and that 88% of them had attributed this hesitation to fear of legal and procedural hassles.
All this is common knowledge to a vast majority of citizens, but why is it that they still hesitate? Obviously governments have not been able to send the message down till the police station and other officials concerned, who still traumatise a Good Samaritan.
Implementation of the Supreme Court guidelines has to be done in letter and spirit so that people get over this fear. There are many determined Good Samaritans, who do not shy away from lending a helping hand as and when needed despite knowing what they would have to go through at police stations and hospitals and later in courts.
However, a handful of such shining examples of humanity are not enough to save the countless lives that are lost when accidents are not reported to the police. The fact that there should be no intimidation by police, unnecessary detention at hospitals and prolonged legal formalities for Good Samaritans has to be publicised time and again not just among people but also among authorities concerned. Along with this there should be a system of penalising authorities concerned, who dare to ignore the Supreme Court guidelines.
People, who are aware of their rights on lending a helping hand to accident victims, would not hesitate or be afraid once they know that action would be taken against authorities concerned for harassment in any form. Just announcing that Good Samaritans will be rewarded, as done by Delhi government after the current incident, is not enough.
