Ashank Garg

A 1 crore earning techie's life has no value in Bengaluru. And if you're not earning that much? Your life has even less. My sister and her friend were driving home in my car. They stopped at a red light - the logical thing anyone does. A drunk driver in a mini-truck didn't feel the need to stop. He slammed into them instead. I know he was drunk. She knows it. The highway police knows it. The truck owner knows it. No arrest was made. The truck driver never showed up at the station. The owner never showed up. Nobody cared. My sister and her friend - both injured, both terrified - kept going back to the station, back to the accident site, explaining what happened over and over, just trying to get a report filed. I was in the US. All I could do was talk to them on calls, helpless. Here's what the police told them: "If nobody died, an FIR doesn't make sense." "Just claim first party insurance." "Third party insurance doesn't pay much anyway." And then, quietly, one officer pulled them aside and told the truth: "These truck mafia bribe us. Nothing will happen." Nothing happened. The truck was KA04 AE6550. The police themselves said if they'd been on a two-wheeler, both would be dead. We had 100% insurance from Reliance. Claim rejected. Reason? "Misrepresentation of facts." These two, even while injured, kept showing up to represent the facts. Reliance still found a way to deny them. The law says if someone hits you from behind, the person behind is at fault. It was a red light. How does a truck driver not see that? Trust me, this isn't about money. I'll manage the repairs and the medical bills. I have savings. And I have a decent credit score; I'll take a personal loan if I have to. That's not the point. The point is this: my sister is afraid now. Afraid that anything can happen to her at any moment and there's no one - no system, no law, no institution - that will protect her. But how do I tell her the world is supposed to be fair? How do I tell her to trust the system? How do I explain that the drunk driver walks free, the truck owner was never questioned, and the police pocketed their bribe and closed the file? I can't say to any official, "What if this was your daughter? Your sister?" Because their daughters travel in cars with security escorts. They will never know what it feels like to be ordinary and unprotected. So I'm saying it to you, an ordinary reader. You're on the road. You stop at a red light. A drunk driver in a truck rear-ends your car. Your loved one is inside, terrified. And then you learn: there is no recourse. None. The truck owner pays off the cops. The insurance company rejects your claim. The system shrugs. This is Bengaluru in 2025. This is India in 2025. This is what your life is worth here. One more thing. The friend in the car? He's one of the smartest people I know. close to top 100 rank in IIT-JEE. AI engineer and one of the biggest data companies. At 23, he is valuable to be paid more annually than the cost of five such trucks, that too, in India. He's patriotic. He pays his taxes. He stays in India even though he constantly gets offers to move to the US. This is the confidence our system gives to someone who is clearly an asset to this country. All this unfairness - for a drunk truck driver. @blrcitytraffic @BlrCityPolice - tell me. I've always avoided raising fingers publicly. But what else can I do?