Getting away with murder - Man Friday

The wonderful thing about our country is how it throws up surprise after wonderful surprise, never ceasing to bring smiles to the faces of its billions. After the GIMP’s continuous antics and the cricket team’s valiant attempt to win the Great Indian Laughter Challenge, it is this time the turn of the judiciary and the police who join forces to give everyone a wonderful warm feeling inside. For, it has been revealed that in our country you can kill seven people and get just six months in prison. That’s approximately 26 days per life taken and even less if you’re lucky enough to get the month of February as part of the sentences. You could probably whittle it down to even less if your negotiation skills are as good as my mathematical ones (please not that Trash editorial only gave a rough figure whereas I was far more accurate) For all of you pricks who are sitting there with your mouths open waiting for flies to go in, wondering what I am talking about, I am obviously referring to the recent judgement in the Alistair Pereira drink, act like a mad man, kill some poor people and run case. The court as usual released some bull shit statements about the lack of evidence. Trash of Islamabad quoted the “honourable” judge A.P. Mishra, or as Alistair’s uncle likes to refer to him “The good man” as having identified the following gaps in evidence: 1. There was no proper sketch of the accident site drawn up to show how fast the car was going. I have just a few questions about this. Do sketches really reveal speed? I thought they were two dimensional and didn’t move. Thank God I didn’t become an architect or a cartoonist. How slow can a car be going if it’s engine has been ripped out of the bonnet? How fast does a car have to go to kill seven people? How fast is a car allowed to go when it’s on the FRIGGING PAVEMENT? Of course I am sure that the court and Alistair’s lawyers would give me wonderfully convincing answers to all these questions such as ‘The engine had loose motions and was feeling really hot in the bonnet, so it tried to run away”, “The people were really light yaar, the car just touched them and they flew” and “Arey baba, the pavement looks like the road only at night”. So let’s move on to the second point of contention. 2. There was no forensic evidence to show that Alistair was drunk I know this sounds really ridiculous, but the police have an excellent excuse. Investigating officer Meenakshi Patil confronted the angry press explaining that it had been impossible to get any evidence to this effect as Alistair had been holding it in since November. She managed to say all this even as suspicious looking yellow droplets were trickling down from her mouth to her cheeks. 3. No high profile court case would be complete without its share of hostile witnesses. In this case it seems that Alistair’s fellow passengers on seeing the beauty of death magically sprung wings and flew away. There is also some crap in the trash about some watchmen etc. not showing up. There is the regulation story about someone having his spectacles shoved up his ass and therefore being unable to identify pictures taken by a photographer who was apparently able to take pictures of the accident before it even happened. I say screw the case and let’s get to know this photographer. I want to know my future. This one is my absolute favourite 4. The “good man” says that one of the reasons he could not persecute Alistair under the appropriate law was a lack of INJURY CERTIFICATES Yes, because, it is not good enough simply to have dead and injured people. It is necessary to have written statements saying that the people are indeed dead or injured and not just pretending as part of a game they are playing with their children or mistaken for dead when they are in fact just sleeping with a bit of blood splashed on them. 5. The great Mumbai Mara has attributed another brilliant observation to the “good man”. They quote him as saying that the police offered NO EXPLANATION FOR THE ACCIDENT. Hmmm….I can just imagine what amazing explanations Alistair and his brilliant lawyer Manjula Rao came up with in court. I think they may have sounded a little like this : “Those people were really dark” “There were some pixies in the bonnet playing with the engine” “But I drive drunk every night and nothing’s ever happened before” “Those people jumped on my car because they were jealous of me” “But sir, I played hockey for my school” “It was Salmaan!!!” The trash have of course done a good job of kissing the judiciary’s ass by placing the blame for the mild sentence squarely on the cops for not providing enough evidence. I hate to be a little upstart, but allow me this one minor observation. You have dead people. You have a smashed car. You know who the driver is. HOW MUCH FREAKING MORE EVIDENCE DO YOU NEED? The brilliance of our judicial system is that the onus is on the prosecution and not the defence. There is no reports anywhere of the defence being pressurized by the court to come up with some alternate explanation for the accident apart from obvious inebriation and the fact that the driver was A Big Stupid Moron. It would at least been nice if the defence had bothered to come up with some fake reports proving that the car malfunctioned or that there was a huge orange eagle that suddenly flew across the road and distracted Alistair. But in this case the defence has got away with simply saying “ I don’t know why he did it, but it certainly wasn’t because he was drunk”. Mean while Alistair feels that even the meager 6 months is too long for him to spend alone without suckling on his Mamma’s breasts and is planning to appeal. Police Chief Dhananjay Jadhav played it smart by simply repeating the phrases “I have to read the reports” and “ I will look in to the matter” a hundred times each in response to all the press’ questions. Any way, none of this really matters. For as the Mumbai Mara reports Alistair’s girl friend Nicole has broken up with him. They have also been kind enough to show a picture of Nicole’s panties on their front page, strictly for informative reasons of course. So while the families of the seven killed and the 8 injured clasp on to the measly 5 lakhs that the driver has been fined, they can at least sleep soundly knowing that Alistair ain’t getting any. P.S. For all of you who want to respond negatively to this article, bear in mind; In India a life is worth 26 days and I have a pretty sharp knife in my kitchen drawer.