Flouting Highway Law
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: February 18, 2013 -

The announcement made by Transporters and Drivers' Council (TDC) to stop plying all commercial vehicles in the State from February 20 to 22 merits some serious discussion.

It's true that TDC has been constraint to come up with the decision to launch cease work strike as the State Government has failed to translate the assurance given for taking up necessary actions against SDPO of Imphal East District Manjit who led a police team in firing several rounds of tear gas canisters at a group of people who were mourning for Ningombam Gobardhon.

A truck driver by profession engaged in transportation of sugar bags from Guwahati to Imphal under Food Corporation of India (FCI), Gobardhon was found killed brutally inside his own truck at Kohima in the morning of February 7.

The manner in which Gobardhon was found bludgeoned to death with all the sugar bags and the handyman of the truck missing was, no doubt, brutal and suspicious.

The incident has also pricked the conscience of the people over the sufferings that truck drivers plying along the National Highways have to endure for ensuring adequate food supply in the State.

That was the precise reason why TDC with the support of the other transporters' organizations like All Manipur Road Transport Drivers and Motor Workers' Union (AMRTDMWU) has come out strongly and taken up the issue with the Government of Manipur for doing justice.

Expectedly, when the lifeless body of Gobardhon was brought to Imphal from Kohima and a mass prayer service was felicitated by AMRTDMWU to enable the public to pay their last respect to the departed soul, many people from different walks of life turned at the office of AMRTDMWU located at Mantripukhri in morning of February 9.

As the prayer service was in progress, a police team under the leadership of Imphal East SDPO Manjit descended and went berserk firing tear gas canisters at the mourners who were blocking the National Highway segment at Mantripukhri.

Instead of peaceful talks and negotiations to clear the Highway, which they could have adopted for resumption of traffic flow, the manner in which the police team had flexed their muscles against the mourners too was equally condemnable in the strongest term.

However, leaving aside the question of whether or not AMRTDMWU and TDC have given prior call to the public to stop plying vehicles along the stretch of the National Highway from 6 am to 6 pm on the day of prayer service, the fact still remains that under Section 8 (B) of the National Highways Act, obstruction of a National Highway is a non-bailable offence and anyone who violates this section can be arrested and imprisoned for upto 5 years.

On the other hand, the State Government should do away with its habit of giving assurances if they are not going to be kept.

Assurances may quell the anger of an aggrieved party temporarily, but giving assurances all the time without the commitment to solve the problems in hand is, definitely, not the sign of good governance.