Police harrassment biggest obstacle to India's good samaritans

 

The experts say it is because of fear in the name of inquiry that prevents people from coming to help.

 

Dr V Chandrashekhar, HoD Department of Psychiatry, Bengaluru Medical College and Research Institute says that, the process of inquiry and appearance in court is what worries most Indians.  "They just do not  want to get in any trouble by helping others,"  said Dr Chandrashekhar.

 

Apart from the fear factor, the disappearing of joint family structure and increase in nuclear family has made man very self-centred. And not helping others in times of emergency is nothing but the reflection of being selfish. This phenomenon was seen when bystanders and the victims themselves refused to come forward to speak to the police regarding the Bengaluru New Year’s mass molestation incident.

 

"Even if a senior citizen falls or a minor accident takes place, people choose to ignore it. They think by taking time to help others in emergency it will affect their work," said MS Thimmappa, Former Vice Chancellor Bengaluru University. He also added despite the Supreme Court’s guidelines assuring that accident case witnesses will not be questioned or harassed in the name of helping the victim, people still choose to stay away. Probably because previous examples have made them wary.

 

Vatal Nagaraj, founder, Kannada Vatal Paksha, a pro-Kannada organisation says, the attitude of people has changed after the coming of the IT and BT sector. He pins the blame on the outsiders. He says, “Many crimes take place in which the accused or the victim is an outsider and bystanders are also outsiders in many cases and hence they don’t come to help during an emergency. The familiarity factor is missing and hence people are not willing to come forward to help.”

 

"Earlier only Tamils were seen as outsiders and now there is huge immigration from North, East India and from other parts of the world. Even the police is finding it difficult to seek help from these people in solving many cases," added Nagaraj. 

 

Hemanth Nimbalkar, Additional Commissioner of  Police, Bengaluru, who was handling both Kammanahalli and KG  Halli molestation cases, he is surprised and is unable to understand the psychology  of bystanders who just act as mere spectators.

 

Dr Rini Ralte, President, North East Solidarity a community that helps NE immigrants  in Bengaluru attributed this phenomenon of people refusing to help to people’s fear of interacting with the police. "In one of the harassment cases on a North East girl, a case was registered at JC Nagar Police Station, and two North Eastern youths who sold momos on the street signed as witnesses. But they regretted their decision as the police forced them to come to thestation to register an FIR. The process took one week," said Dr Rini. 

 

Previously if good Samaritans went to the hospital with the accident victim or someone who was attacked by a criminal then the doctors firstly refused to handle the case, stating it was a police case.Secondly, the helpers would be interrogated by the police on matters they did not know of and in some cases were even falsely accused of having done the crime. So now people prefer to keep their goodness and kindness to themselves for fear of being harassed.

 

It will take some time for the mentality to change. When people see that such acts are not landing them in trouble or does not threaten their lives in anyway probably then the connect with strangers might increase. Also this attitude towards people as outsiders and locals needs to be dismantled for interaction to actually happen. Until then ‘strangers will always remain a danger’.