Woman Biker Hit, Air Force Veteran Attacked: The Lawlessness In Gurugram

The possibility that their actions could be captured on CCTV and would likely help the police nail them later does not scare them. In short, the law does not exist for them is a fact which has been proven time and again by no one else but themselves. Out there on the roads in Gurugram, the 'Millenium City' in Haryana near the national capital, it has been for a while "my way or the Thar way", as the memes on Instagram go.

Two cases back to back serve as a reminder of the dangers that common people who are happy with just minding their own business and living by the book face in this strange city.

The first case is of Group Captain Amit Kumar Gupta (retired), who was part of the Indian Air Force's Operation Safed Sagar team during the 1999 Kargil War. He had taken his family for dinner at a restaurant in the city that boasts a skyline of glass office towers and multinational headquarters.

He dropped his family off and went to park the car himself but returned with a fractured elbow and a head injury that needed surgery to take him out of danger.

The police complaint said the parking staff sent him from the valet stand to a basement and then to a multilevel lot after which they refused to park his car at all. When he tried to reverse the car, one of the attendants hit the windshield and so he got out to speak to him. In return, the attendant hit him with an iron rod and threatened to kill him.

Gupta alleged no security personnel intervened and the police team took over half an hour to reach him. He said it was a restaurant chef - and not the security staff who were paid to organise parking - who finally intervened.

Three days after Gupta was assaulted for simply asking what was fair and promised to him i.e. a parking space, a woman biker faced a horrific experience in full public view on a road in Gurugram.

Sia, who runs the Instagram handle 'rebelwheels_sia_', was out with her biking group on Golf Course Road when a car full of men who appeared to be drunk began following her. They kept telling her to stop but she rode on and one of her friends fell in behind her, trying to keep the car from pulling alongside.

Sia said the car cut in front of her bike, struck it and drove off while she was thrown onto the road and her motorcycle was dragged a few metres. An action camera mounted on her bike recorded all of it. Another friend chased the car down at a traffic signal but the driver sped away.

The biker has since posted the car's registration number and its registered owner's name online, and many people on social media have tagged the handles of the Gurugram Police and others repeatedly demanding strong action.

Another retired military officer was assaulted over road rage in Gurugram some six months earlier. Colonel Anil Yadav (retired) was on his way to a wedding when his car collided with another vehicle. He got out to inspect the damage. Several men allegedly pulled him from his car and thrashed him, apart from smashing the windows and headlights of his car with beer bottles and taking Rs 30,000 from him.

The group of men didn't listen to the retired army officer. Instead, the men who were clearly under the influence boasted "they don't care about the military", Colonel Yadav said.

"All this while I was telling them I'm not denying there has been an accident. I'll pay for this. And secondly, I am an army veteran. What disturbed me incredibly was they said 'hum bhi zamidaar ke bete hain, humare bhi chacha, tau fauj mein the, aur hum bhi fauji se koi matlab nahi hain (we are also sons of zamindars, our uncles were in the military, anyway we don't care about the military)'," Colonel Yadav had told NDTV.

Lawlessness on top of crumbling civic infrastructure seems to have been normalised in the urban chaos raised in barely two decades on land that was mostly farmland earlier. Getting the police to intervene quickly depends on how much noise the injured could make about it afterward on social media.

Road rage and unprovoked violence are daily threats for anyone stepping out of their home in Gurugram. Some experts would say this is a sweeping generalisation as it could be true of any city. While that may be so, the frequent incidents stand as pillars of hard evidence that support this sentiment.

The wide main roads give an illusion of safety just by being a busy thoroughfare but are just as dangerous as seen in the case of Sia. Road rage can also turn quickly into organised extortion, as the case involving the retired military officer from February showed.

What gives confidence to some elements in Gurugram to break the law again and again in full public view and on camera?

The common people have been waiting for an answer.

There would definitely be many incidents that go unreported in the city which can no longer hide a clear picture of where anger is always boiling just under the surface, from veterans thrashed with iron rods in fancy commercial parks to young women chased for sport by drunk drivers on wide avenues.

The 'lawlessness' plays out far on the streets below the massive glass towers of multinational firms and luxury apartments on one side, and just across a wall there are cramped settlements that serve as homes for struggling workers. The reality only sinks in when the same people who do not see the 'lawlessness' from high up the tower face it on the road down below one fine day.

The common people in Gurugram are demanding the bare minimum in law and order and not other high-hanging fruit - since in the 'Millenium City' that proudly claims to be a global hub, it takes a single heavy shower of rain to flood the main roads and sink expensive cars, bringing the entire city to a halt.