Crime and Punishment

The coaching strips, like the one from Baghat to Parraypora, have become a thundering nuisance to all

INKSIGHT BY MEHMOOD-UR-RASHID

Aatif Mudabbir, an engineering student lost his life in a road accident this week. The only son, and the lone dream of his parents, was smashed to death by a killer car. Eyewitness accounts and the graphic narration given by the photographs of the accident site indisputably demonstrate that his was no mistake. He was a hapless victim of a rash driving act committed by a spoiled boy. Spoiled son! The car that ran into his was coming from the opposite direction. Hitting the divider that separates the two tubes of the airport road it went into air like a Hollywood movie scene and flew straight into driving door of the car driven by the victim. How to describe it; he left for his class in the morning and in the evening we rested him in grave.
With this it was all over. A youth was cut short and a family completely devastated.  The shock was felt by all in varied measure. No doubt condolences will come in bundles, and with a real sense of grief. It is a tragedy of a kind that whosoever hears about barely resists tears. It inflicts a cut on every heart. But a day or two and the banality of life will suck us away from it.  The incident will occasionally surface up in our mundane chats when, God forbid, something similar happens or a topic under discussion touches upon this memory. But the family is absolutely ruined. Parents have to live with this death for all the time to come. It actually exceeds description what the loss of a lone son means to a family. Having an Abrahamic heart is not a common man’s attribute! 
Heart has its own language. It is profuse. It is spontaneous. It is cutting. It is emotional. Consult a relative or a friend, and he will unstintingly ask for the head of the culprit. Right now, right here. Ask the parents, and may be the shattered souls even don’t know how to react.  They have lost their world. None and nothing can bring them their son back. But for us as a society and a system this incident leaves a blazing trail of live questions in its wake.
Head too has its language. It is elaborate. It is methodical. It is blunt. It’s crude. Emotions aside, death is a fact of our life. It doesn’t need saying that death has not even a scant regard for our sensibilities and emotions. It snatches from us whosoever it wants. It has its own calendar. It goes by its own scheme. Ghalib has intensely expressed the human helplessness when he lost his son;
Aai Waye Falak-e-peer Jawan Saal Tha Abhi Arif
Kya Tera Bigadta Jo Na Marta Koi Din Aur
My son Arif, too young that he was O! Death  
What harm would it do had he lived a day more
It is the point of departure for the head. From here onwards it follows the trail of questions. It doesn’t want to watch gore helplessly and do nothing. 
The first question is about the responsibility of this death. According to the initial reports the boy driving the high end luxury car is a class 12th student. That means in all likelihood an illegal site on the road. Second, the way he drove was one day or the other going to hit someone. It is a common sight on Baghat-Parraypora patch of Airport Road, which has become a haphazard market for ‘education’ vendors that teenagers drive cars and bikes as if a plane on the runway. All these cars are potential killers. What are traffic department and the police doing when they know how hellish these problem-teens have made the life of a commoner on this patch. Do we have the laws and the will to meet this nuisance! One way of dealing with them could be to first warn officially these errant, their parents, and the tutors. If they continue the same, cease the vehicle and consider it a state property, exactly the same way as we cease the illegal arms. Both kill, and both must meet the same fate. At the same time bar them from driving any vehicle for next some years, and impose heavy penalty. We can’t wait for the time when another Atif is done to death. There are some instances where police has registered multiple FIRs against some such students but they get away with it too easily.  This is a license to kill. 
Now about the responsibility factor. Once the parents and tutors are intimated about the behavior of the errant, their responsibility should become legal than mere moral. They must equally share the blame and the punishment. Here is how the Bible approaches crime and culpability: 
“If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull must be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull must be stoned and the owner also must be put to death.”
Here a question strikes. If son does wrong why should parents pay for it? Morally they can be held culpable but law is different than morality. Yes, the difference between law and ethics is an established one, but here the provider of vehicle is not the son, but the parents. Further when they have been informed it takes the matter from the realm of ethics to law. Either such parents should not provide the vehicle, and accept not to come to the defense of their child if a regulatory authority takes an action, or else share the blame and the consequent punishment. Similarly, the tutors should either expel such students or be responsible for their behavior. 
Another administrative measure would be to identify such areas and introduce some regulations. If the conduct of students is really to be monitored on this strip, CCTVs can be a real help. The errant can be zoomed in easily. The problem that comes in is who should supervise the whole thing. Though police can be a part of it but not certainly at the centre of things; since the characteristic and character of police have undergone terrible changes in Kashmir, such a sensitive thing cannot be left to police alone. Parents, local elders, teachers, traffic department and police can all be a part of such regulatory body. This suggestion might sound bizarre or too boring but if a death of a youth really matters it is no difficult to get law, education and society together to act.
The second area of concern is the institution of coaching itself. It is a poison that has been injected into the body called education.  It deserves a full length debate, and the length of this column is a great constraint. So it can be taken up separately. May be next week.
May Allah bless the soul of departed, and shower patience on the family.  
( Feedback at mrvaid@greaterkashmir.com)

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