Mangaluru: Recalling the incident which took place in the limits of Mangaluru East Police station-Kadri on Thursday, 24 December 2020, where a woman from Mijar had come down to Mnagaluru, and who had gone shopping, leaving her sleeping child in the car, was in for a shock as it was towed for wrong parking. The incident occurred at Mallikatte road. As per MA Nataraj, ACP (traffic), the car was parked haphazardly and hence taken away. Since it was locked and the windows tinted, no one realised a child was sleeping inside, he said. The woman had come to shop with her two kids and driver. She took the older one with her while the younger child and the driver stayed in the car. Since the woman left her mobile in the car, the driver locked it and rushed to hand it over. A warning was sounded, and the cops waited for 15 minutes before the car was towed since there was no response, sources said.
Sources reveal that the woman, named Divya had come to the City from Mijar, and had parked her car by the side of a residential complex, and went shopping to a nearby shop along with one of her sons. The driver and the woman’s other son Prakhyath, a fourth standard student were inside the car. Few minutes after the woman had gone shopping, the driver noticed the woman’s mobile phone left behind on the car seat, he went to hand it over to her, and in the meantime, the police arrived and towed the vehicle away. When the woman came back, she was shocked to see her car and son missing.
But the locals informed them that her car was towed by the Kadri police to the station. When the car was towed the police didn’t realize there was a child inside the car, since the car windows were darkly tinted. The police also maintained that the reason for towing the car, a Swift Dzire, was because it was parked on a footpath in front of Girias store in front of Mangala Hospital, Mangaluru. But the woman in her innocence said that her car was not parked in the no-parking zone and it was not on the road. She said she is aware of the rules and hence the car had been parked at a spot which was not a no-parking zone. She had said that after the kidnapping of a boy in Ujire a few days ago, she was worried that her son was missing. She also said that she had warned her son not to open doors for strangers because of the possibility of abduction. She refused to pay the fine, and the police took the case lightly, with mutual understanding between both parties.
It is now learnt that, two days later, the traffic police after retrieving evidence through video footage found that the car was parked on the footpath and the car had tinted windows, and in this regard, police have now registered two cases against the woman. Before towing the vehicle, police had videographed the car, and that video is added in this report at the end, which clearly shows the car parked on a footpath, and the car having tinted windows. Due to the tint, the cops were not able to see anyone inside the car, before towing. Only when they towed the car and were parking it in the Kadri Police Station, they saw the boy inside the car. Even though the woman had arguments about her not parking the car illegally, but now after evidence gained from the video recording, the police have registered two cases, one for illegal parking and the other for a car having tinted glasses.
Speaking to Newskarnataka Sub Inspector Ramachandra Bhat said that the police waited till they got the correct picture of the incident, and only after receiving the video footage, did they decide to register the cases against the woman. “In the video, it clearly shows the car being parked on a footpath, and also that the car was tinted, therefore the child inside the car was not visible. The video has spoken the truth, to support this case” added SI Bhat.
This incident is a perfect example as to how children’s safety is neglected by the parents or elders while taking them along in their vehicles. Safety is a matter of choice and should not have to be enforced by law. There’s no legal compulsion to increase the height of a balcony railing, but we choose to do it anyway, to keep our children safe. But for some reason, we tend to treat safety on the road differently. Take for example women pillion riders on a two-wheeler who remain reluctant to wear helmets. Some of us wear seatbelts only when a traffic policeman is in sight and we allow little children to sit in the front seat of a car. Or leave them alone in a locked car while we rush into a shop for “just two minutes?”
