As Navjot Singh Sidhu gets a year in jail, a look at some of the worst road rage incidents in India

Road rage is no small matter. Ask Navjot Singh Sidhu about it. The Congress leader has been sentenced to one year in jail in a 1988 road rage case.

SC imposes one year sentence on cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu in a 1988 road rage case

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) May 19, 2022

For those who are unaware, the cricketer-turned-politician had on 27 December 1988, beaten Gurnam Singh on his head in the middle of a road near the Sheranwala Gate Crossing in Patiala. The attack had led to the demise of Gurnam Singh.

In light of today’s judgment handed down by the Supreme Court, here’s a look back at some of the worst road rage incidents in the country.

Journo killed for overtaking: In January, a journalist was killed by three men in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh. Sudhir Saini, the journalist was on a motorbike when he overtook a vehicle. Angered over this, the men stopped the journalist and beat him up. Saini was taken to the hospital where he succumbed to injuries.

Student ‘run over’ for objecting to smoking: A young Sikh student was killed in September 2017 for reportedly objecting to a man for smoking in public. According to reports, Gurpreet Singh was near AIIMS in the Capital, eating his dinner when a man came and started smoking on his face. Gurpreet objected to the man blowing smoke on his face and asked him to not do so.

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The man, who was reportedly inebriated, then threatened Gurpeet and later hit Gurpreet’s bike with his car. Three days after the incident, Gurpreet Singh succumbed to his injuries.

Stabbed to death: Pawan Kumar, 26, an employee of a travel firm was stabbed to death by a trio on a busy Bengaluru road on 18 September 2017 in a road rage incident. Pawan kept laying in a pool of blood for nearly half an hour, but no one helped.

Army officer kills civilian: This 2018 case became big headlines owing to the accused being from the Army. Chandigarh’s Sector 37 resident Parveen Yadav died when he got involved in a scuffle with Col Manvir Singh Bains.

News reports had then said that the two parties were in a spat on the dividing road of Sectors 34 and 35, Chandigarh after their two vehicles brushed past each other. Bains reportedly lifted him up by the collar during the argument; Yadav fell unconscious on the spot and was declared dead when he was taken to hospital.

Bihar MLC’s son kills boy: Rocky Yadav, the son of a Bihar politician, in May 2016 opened fire on Aditya Sachdeva, a 19-year-old who was driving a Maruti Swift borrowed from his father to celebrate the end of his exams.

As per an NDTV report, when Sachdeva overtook Yadav’s car, he beat up Sachdeva and furiously asked him, “Don’t you know who I am?”

Yadav was handed down the life sentence and his mother, Manorama Devi, was suspended by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar from the party.

Murder over public urination: A 33-year-old e-rickshaw driver, Ravinder, lost his life in 2017 when he was beaten to death with brass knuckles and bricks wrapped in towels by a group of Delhi University students. The reason: He had stopped two of the students from urinating in the open at north-west Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar.

Parking’s a real pain: In February 2014, two brothers, Shadab Singh and Kaptan Singh, were shot dead by a man Rahul Dabas over an argument about parking space in Bawana area in outer Delhi.

Road rage on the rise

For years now, the incidents of road rage have been in the news and experts note that there’s been a rise in these incidents.

Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari had recently informed Lok Sabha that the total number of road rage and rash driving cases was 1.55 lakh in 2019 and it jumped to 1.83 lakh cases in 2020. In 2021 the number of cases increased to 2.15 lakh.

According to a ‘Driving Cities Index’ survey conducted in over 100 cities, Mumbai and Kolkata came at the bottom of the list with some of the worst road rage-related incidences.

It’s time India wakes up to the psychological damages that road rage in India inflicts on travellers and tries to curb these happenings.

With inputs from agencies

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