Recently a police officer was murdered by a rikshaw puller.
In "The Hindu" of saturday, feb 27, the following comments could be read on the subject:
"The recent murder of a traffic police constable allegedly at the hands of a rikshaw puller in the Capital's trans-Yamuna area has raised serious questions about the measures taken by a section of the police force to "discipline" rickshaw pullers on Delhi's roads".
" The incident has left many people wondering what transpired between the two that the rickshaw puller took the extreme step".
"They live under police terror. The police puncture rickshaw tires with ice-picks. This is common in places like Fatehpuri and the Red Fort. For a person who earns his daily bread by pulling a rickshaw, it is sheer torture. he has to get the punctures repaired from his [meager! M] earnings".
"It is just like beating up a man for not walking on the pavement of a road that does not have one".

The Delhi traffic police (yes, the one that is very concerned with the welfare of all these careless pedestrians crossing the road illegally and climbing fences) apparantly is less concerned with the welfare of rickshaw pullers....

This is an ad by the Delhi Police in the Hindu Times... the Delhi Police is very concerned with the health of Delhi's pedestrians and therefor urges them to cross the roads of Delhi carefully. Very noble thought....

The people in the picture are climbing over a fence at the side of the road. This is something one can observe in many places of Delhi and even on the highway which connects Delhi to Gurgaon and ultimately Jaipur. It is a newly constructed highway (still not finished) with many modern features as flyovers, tollgates and signs saying tuctuc and bicycles (three wheelers) cannot use the highway. The one thing that is not there are pedestrian crossings.

But no problem. The careless pedestrians, who run for their lives when crossing the roads of Delhi, could also use subways and zebra crossings, according to the Delhi Police.
Well, subways are going to be rather difficult to find in the middle of a highway, and so are zebra crossings, as a matter of fact.

The careless pedestrians are also urged not to read newspapers when crossing the roads....should no be too hard to achieve in a country where half the population is illiterate. Besides, who has the time to read the newspaper when running for their lives? That is the one downside...the careless pedestrians are in fact running on the road (a thing they should not do, according to the Delhi Police). Anyone who has ever tried to cross a road in Delhi understands why!

But the best is yet to come.....