إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّآ إِلَيْهِ رَٰجِعُونَ
" Verify we belong to Allah and to Him shall we return"
Yesterday Ahmad (my nephew) returned home from school very depressed and downcasted. While I was driving him to tution, he almost crying said, " Sam phoopo... my friend has died."
"What?", though I had heard very clearly to what he said but still in to deny the tragic news, I asked impetously.
"Sam phoopo, one of my friend at school has died", he repeated to confirm.
Silence...
Me just trying to hold my tears, uttered not single word still in state of shock, dropped him at tution. At evening when he returned, I called him and asked, " How?"
His friend died in a road accident while sitting behind another friend on motorbike who was staging mortor cycle one wheeling (MOW) - a fatal practice in Pakistan. This dangerous craze claims hundreds of lives every year.
A number of youngsters can be seen show casing their dare acts and other bike-stunts on various roads. Most of these motorcycles run without silencers and the bikers make sure to give their bikes a complete make-over so that they have dazzling headlights, standout designs without mudguards and fuel tanks adorned in different colours. No side mirrors which has become a norm for all ages!
Such dare acts are done even on busy roads making driving difficult and threatening the lives and vehicles damage of also those who are not involved. Sadly our traffic police has miserably failed to control such stunts and other traffic violations.
The police says that they try their best to curb this practice and also adopt counter measures but youngsters do not refrain and get involved in this menace. According to them they need the cooperation of the society, especially parents to eliminate this tendency. But is this really so as they are saying and it is the job of parents to help them in controlling it.
For me it is a big NO!!!! This in the concrete is an immense failure of the concerned police department. Though parents are responsible to groom their kids but everyone knows that many a kids especially youngsters pass through a time in their life when they want to somewhat rebel against parents. Though this doesn't free parents from their duty of proper upbringing of their kids and raising them to be responsible citizens. But the lesson our kids learn from the mainstream media channels, which earn their living from the advertisements with taglines like #meriMarzi, #whyNotMeriJaan, #darKeAgayJeetHai, provoke them to dare such thrilling acts. Many ads of cold drinks, energy drinks and few other show the macho guys violating traffic rules and endangering their and others lives on road. Simply writing a disclaimer at end, and that too with unreadable font, does not exonerate them from the wrong done to the society.
Back to the responsibility of the traffic police, it is entirely and unconditionally their job duty and liability to completely control the traffic and curb such dare acts done on the roads. Once a while we see our traffic wardens active of roads addressing different violations each time, such as not wearing helmets, bypassing red lights, not fastening seat belts, and ofcourse motorbike stunts. Do compaign once a while, but after a week or two they go back to their dens and hibernate for months. Then after few months the sleeping cell awakes and get back to their jobs. This cycle has been repeating since ... I don't know since when, just since I've been watching.
Complete control over such life-threatening violations can not at all be achieved by random and unconsistent crackdowns. The only way the traffic police can accomplish this, is by being sincere to their duties, which dismally is against the norms of Pakistani organizational culture!