Accident victim’s kin pushes for road safety
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On February 21, three friends set out for a joy drive to grab a cup of coffee when they met with an accident that killed all three and plunged their families into grief and pain. Keshav Nanda should have been celebrating his 19th birthday on Monday with his loved ones; he succumbed to one of the biggest killers in the country — a road accident. “Every other day, we hear about road accidents and other such tragedies. We hear about them and grieve briefly. However, grief to those of us who have lost our loved ones in these tragedies is permanent. This accident cost me the only sibling I had, my brother Keshav. I truly believe that we owe much more than just grief to those we have lost”, says 17-year-old Sadika Nanda.
Sadika has learnt the hard way the importance of safe driving and what flouting rules can do. She hopes that through her pain, she can reach out to other young people and help them understand the follies of youth. “The odds of a catastrophe of this magnitude could have been drastically reduced if the authorities concerned had equipped the highway with appropriate street lighting. Further, if the specific trucking company hadn’t undermined the importance of reflectors, then perhaps the accident could have been avoided”, says Sadika.
According to the police, the 16-wheel truck did not have the mandatory reflectors at the rear, resulting in a horrific collision. “An appalling fact is that the government authority concerned ignored necessary inspection procedures and assigned a legal road permit to a company that owns such unfit trucks”, says Sadika. The three boys were not wearing seat-belts which may have saved their lives. Sadika says that as someone who has personally experienced the loss of a close one due to entirely avoidable circumstances, she hopes that others learn that they owe it to their near and dear ones to be safe on the roads.
“I owe my brother the assurance that from his untimely death, we will learn to take care and be cautious. We cannot endanger our lives and the peace of mind of our families, particularly that of our parents and siblings. I can only hope that the youth of Bengaluru realises now, before it's too late, that there is always someone waiting for them to come back home”, she says stoically.
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