Unsolved hit-and-run cases highlight inequalities in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: On August 8, around 3:30 am, a 38-year-old labourer was fatally knocked down by a speeding car on the Narsingi-Kokapet service road. So far, neither the victim nor the driver have been identified.

At that time, Narsingi Circle Inspector Hari Krishna Reddy had told Deccan Chronicle that the police were checking technical evidence, including CCTV footage, to trace the accused.
Fifteen days later, there has been no news. When contacted, the IC said: “There has been no progress regarding their identity or the vehicle. The body of the victim is in the morgue of Osmania hospital.”

“No one has come forward to identify the body. As the CCTV cameras were located far from the scene of the accident, the footage was not of much use,” he said.

This is not an isolated case of a hit-and-run death that has not progressed, perhaps because the victim belonged to a lower social class. In another case, on August 4, an unidentified 40-year-old man was killed while crossing the road late at night under the Gandhi Hospital metro station. The central reservation between the metro pillars is home to many destitute people. The investigation into this case has not progressed either.

Prakash, who lives on the central reservation, told Deccan Chronicle, “A lot of people stay here. Some go to sleep near the bus stand. At night, the drivers are drunk and so are the beggars. Such incidents happen almost every night. The other day, my friend and I were sitting here and a car hit the central reservation. My friend got injured on the head and we took him to Gandhi Hospital. The police came, saw and left. That’s it. Nobody really cares about people like us.”

In Cyberabad police station, out of 505 hit-and-run cases registered, 376 remain pending. Among the posh areas, Madhapur division has reported 73 cases: Madhapur 21, Gachibowli 31, Raidurgam 21 till July. Of these, 52 remain unsolved, despite having more CCTV cameras than any other police station in the city.

Joel Davis, a traffic officer in Cyberabad, told Deccan Chronicle: “We generally cannot categorise the victims according to their social status. However, most of them are pedestrians.”
In most cases, unless the victim’s family pressures the police to arrest the accused, justice remains elusive.

In Rachakonda, 66 hit-and-run incidents were reported between January and July. Of these, 55 resulted in the death of the victim and 14 resulted in injuries.

According to Srinivas, Rachakonda traffic police chief, “Most of the hit-and-run victims are pedestrians, mostly beggars or labourers.” Around 31 pedestrian deaths have been reported in Rachakonda in the last three months. In one of the cases, a 44-year-old cyclist was knocked down by a speeding car, allegedly driven by a 25-year-old Air India employee, who was in an inebriated state.

The victim, a resident of Ramky Towers, belonged to a well-to-do family. The accused was arrested along with two others. The incident took place in 2022, near Kondapur Botanical Garden, within the limits of Gachibowli police station.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Santhana Selvan, Hyderabad’s cycling mayor, said, “Most of the people who die in hit-and-run accidents are usually cyclists or pedestrians. Those who come from well-off or middle-class families get some kind of compensation, but the poor who die in such cases don’t even get it. I remember an incident in 2022 where a labouring couple riding a bike was hit by an RTC bus. One of them died while the other was injured. We tried our best but couldn’t get any compensation for them.”
He said, “A girl from Suryapet was hit by a car while she was getting off an RTC bus. Her father was a labourer, while she was the first woman from her community to pass her 10th grade exams with good marks. No compensation was given to her family. We took out a silent candlelight march near LB Nagar bus stand to express our solidarity with her. The voice of the poor remains unheard, not even the dead.”