Times of India: Meerut: Sunday,
October 23, 2016.
Ever since
Rakesh Singh lost his 16-year-old son to an accident caused by a speeding
overloaded truck in 2009 in Bijnor, he has been trying to expose the powerful
sand mafia-police-administration-government nexus that allegedly runs an
illegal mining syndicate in the region. He points to numerous irregularities he
has discovered through the more than 500 RTI queries he has filed. His aim is
to ensure implementation of a 2005 Supreme Court judgment that said nine state
governments including UP had violated the Motor Vehicles Act and other laws by
allowing overloaded trucks to ply after paying fixed charges.
For instance,
in a reply to an RTI query given by the Bijnor district magistrate's (DM)
office, the latter stated that no sales tax forms could be procured from the
stone crushing unit where the overloaded truck was loaded that killed Singh's
son as the forms had been seized by the sales tax office in a raid. "When
I filed an RTI to the sales tax department, it replied that no such raid had
taken place. Replying to another query, police confirmed that no document when
the truck which killed my son was seized," said the bereaved father, whose
sole aim is to ensure that no man should lose his son again just because the
"corrupt" system allows trucks to be overloaded.
It was the
night of May 5, 2009 that changed Singh's life forever. Resident of Gurgaon, he
along with his family had gone to Bijnor for a relative's wedding. During the marriage
procession, a speeding overloaded truck not only killed his son but also
crushed a man who tried to stop it. When a day after filing FIR, Singh realized
that police was only playing delaying tactics and doing nothing concrete, he
took the onus of investigating the case himself and even procured information
about the whereabouts of the truck and handed it over to the police, but the
vehicle was not seized.
"It was
only on June 2, nearly a month later, after the intervention of a senior police
official that the truck was seized and the driver jailed, but the police still
did not mention that the truck was 200% overloaded," Singh said. "I
even got to know that the driver cum owner of the truck had pleaded with the
court to release the truck as it was 'overloaded' and tyres could be damaged if
not unloaded soon. Surprisingly, court allowed the release of the truck,"
Singh added.
Since the
district administration did not provide complete information to his queries,
Singh appealed to the state information commission in 2010 and after two years
of hearings, the latter announced a penalty of Rs 75,000 on July 8, 2012. But
the commission also accepted letters from ADM Bijnor requesting that penalty
not be imposed. The case was restarted and frequently delayed. The documents
with Singh even indicate corruption at the highest level at state information
commission in Lucknow. "After my efforts, the commission finally
pronounced the penalty again on February 2, 2015 but it did not sign the
document until August 29, 2016 for reasons best known to it," said Singh.
After 500
RTIs and spending close to Rs 10 lakh, Singh continues his battle to get a 2005
Supreme Court order implemented on roads to rid them of overloaded vehicles
that, according to him, cause 80% of deaths on roads all over the country. Now
Singh plans to move Supreme Court against the "corrupt system" and
illegal mining.
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