Let us start with the eye witness account that everybody gladly took to be the gospel.
Notice the way he says it is very common for people to try to jump the red signal.
Now, read the following… a generous leap of imagination, that connects Delhi’s Tilak Nagar signal with Bangalore’s Yediyur Circle signal opposite Vaibhav Hotel, on Kanakapura Road, as reported by (August 28, 2015).
(Just assume that once you leave Tilak Nagar signal, you will enter the Yediyur Circle signal and move on to the one-way street off Kanakapura Road – this is an imaginary extension of what happened after the altercation).
Jasleen Kaur approached the cap-wearing man in anger. She asks him what he was doing, trying to jump the red traffic light.
Sarabjit was stunned. He has never been stopped while gladly jumping a red signal. Nobody around him was trying to stop him jump the signal anyway, so he was angry about this lone girl asking him not to break road rules.
They have a minor altercation in which both offer dire consequences to each other, and then she leaves.
Sarabjit jumps the signal while every other law-abiding citizens around him are waiting for the signal to turn green.
He goes ahead, and entered a one-way road off Kanakapura Road near Yediyur Circle. It was a one-way street and he was clearly continuing his road-rule breaking spree.
16 year old Surya, a student of Kumaran’s was cycling his way to school just then. Sarabjit’s bike knocked Surya’s cycle over.
The impact threw Surya off his bicycle, but Sarabjit frustrated at being unable to get away with the bicycle blocking his way, started mercilessly slapping Surya, a Bengaluru district cricket player.
The appalling part of the Delhi episode is the fact that nobody – not even the media – is even bothered about what Sarabjit was really up to. If they completely believed the eyewitness’ version, why not also believe the part where he says Sarabjit was trying to jump the red signal, as is so ‘common’ in Delhi?
If they do, why is there zero outrage on that? If he broke into a queue you are standing in, what will you do? Let him in front of you silently? Or protest, and hear, ‘Jaanta nahi main kiska beta hoon?’ as is common in Delhi? What does this eyewitness’ children think about jumping the red signal when their dad is seen saying on every single media that ‘it is common’ in Delhi?
I go through this almost everyday and have cried hoarse about how callously we treat road rules almost every alternate day on my Facebook posts. I wrote to the Bangalore Traffic Police on Facebook explaining how Infant’s buses that ferry employees of companies like Samsung, Huawei among others, do this every single day, putting other vehicles’ passengers in danger. I was told my message was ‘forwarded to the Whitefield traffic police’. And, when I ask people on the road to not do this, I’m told that ‘everybody does it’ and it doesn’t matter anymore. And I’m also asked, ‘Who are you to question me? Are you the traffic cop?’.
Why can’t I, a law-abiding citizen adhering to every single rule on the road, question a shameless, reckless, road rule breaking idiot who can put other lives in danger because of his/her foolishness? And if I do, I become the villain, with, ‘Who are you to ask me?’ and ‘Can’t you see, everybody does it!’ and ‘Chill man, what’s your problem?’.
I’m sure you’re asking me now, ‘So, was Jasleen shaming Sarabjit on social media for a wrong reason correct?’. Of course not.
But I’m merely doing what our mainstream media is doing – side-step an issue and focus on another.
Mainstream media side-stepped the fact that sarabjit was out to jump a red signal and Jasleen questioned him for that. Instead, they focused ONLY on the eye-witness claiming that Jasleen’s allegation is false.
I’m side-stepping the fact that Jasleen may have (allegedly) shamed Sarabjit over an imaginary reason. Instead, I’m focusing ONLY on the one thing ignored by media – why did Jasleen start talking to Sarabjit in the first place, as explained by the eye-witness?
And yes, you can ask me to get a ‘sense of proportion and perspective’. That ‘harassment of a woman is not equal to the crime of jumping the red’. Of course it isn’t and I completely get the proportion. But when will we understand the potential proportion of jumping the red? When someone is injured or dead? Shouldn’t we setting our perspectives on this ‘commonly-understood to be totally right’ apathy before some lives are lost?
This complete, collective apathy to road rules is mind-numbingly appalling.
Point is, why isn’t anyone asking the cops to haul Sarabjit for trying to jump the red signal (as ‘proven’ by the all-knowing eye witness that we have decided to full trust) as they are baying for Jasleen’s blood for wrongly (allegedly) accusing Sarabjit? Is trying to jump red signal suddenly alright because it is being seen in front of a more ‘serious’ crime? That’s the precise apathy I’m bringing forth – we may outrage on jumping the red only when lives are lost, by which time it’d be too late.
So, dear lynch mob… please go ahead and raise hell in Jasleen’s life, IF she was lying. But while you’re at it, please spare at least one lit torch and aim it at Sarabjit – jumping red could cause havoc too, in the lives of people who have paid for it with loss of life or limb, for no mistake of theirs.