Who Let Shahnawaz Die? Bystanders or Police?

Why don’t bystanders offer help as a crime scene unfolds? Indifference or fear?2 former cops lock horns over this.

Two children lost their father to road rage in Delhi’s Turkman Gate area on Monday.

Even as they reportedly begged bystanders and two police personnel just 50 meters away, to help stop the violence, their pleas fell on deaf ears.

Even as protests erupted through the area, it raised questions over whether or not collective intervention or timely police presence could have helped save the victim, Shahnawaz.

And, what about us, the bystanders? Why don’t we step forward to help? Are we indifferent? Or afraid of ‘getting involved’? Or scared that police may in turn harass us for being ‘good Samaritans’?

“Those Children Are Lying”

The Quint spoke to former Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police Maxwell Pereira, asking him why the police may have turned away Shahnawaz’s children? Pereira claimed the children were lying:

I don’t believe this is true at all. If there were two policemen present in the vicinity, I refuse to believe that they did nothing to intervene. Instead, nobody had taken the pain to call the police for help.
– Maxwell Pereira, Fmr Jt CP Delhi

Yet, Pereira states that the public needs to be more proactive if they’re at the scene of a crime.

If it’s a scene of crime like a murder, the public should not get involved. In the Turkman Gate incident, the public feared being targeted by the thugs did not get involved. But if you report an accident or any such incident, the police cannot question you or even ask for your name if you don’t want to answer such questions.
– Maxwell Pereira, Fmr Jt CP Delhi

It is commonly believed that bystanders who do report a crime are often targeted themselves, by the police. Pereira disagrees.

It is incorrect to state that the police harasses such people. We carried out campaigns to make people aware that they would not be harassed. But people pay little heed to that.
–Maxwell Pereira, Fmr Jt CP Delhi

“Police Inaction and Apathy is a Fact”

Social activist and former DGP of Goa, Amod Kanth disagrees with Maxwell Pereira. He concedes that police inaction often deters bystanders from being pro-active:

In most cases, the police do sort out matters. But yes, police apathy and inaction does exist. Sometimes, the police refuse to intervene in a case or are late to arrive. At times, even if people call for help, inactive police officers do not intervene.

– Amod Kanth, Fmr Goa DGP, Founder, Prayas

Kanth agrees that people did fall prey to police harassment in the past. He has pointers for who report a crime to the police:

Earlier when people would report a crime, the police would turn around and harass them instead and sometimes even implicate them. But now that is not so. People have every right to report a crime or aid someone in distress and walk away once the police has arrived on the spot. But even when doing so, do rope in two or three other bystanders. Being alone could still spell trouble.

–Amod Kanth, Fmr Goa DGP, Founder, Prayas

So, pick up the phone and call the police. Don’t be a bystander. Your initiative may just save yet another person from meeting Shahnawaz’s fate.