Sugeeta BHPian



Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: New Delhi Posts: 352 Thanked: 191 Times

Lone Women Drivers in Delhi. Be Alert. I am still too shocked. Was trying to locate a thread on the matter, and came across many. But I also wanted to warn lone women drivers to not only avoid lonely stretches, but also to remain alert in the middle of traffic jams.



I am narrating my personal experience. Something that happened with me last evening, at approx. 7.15 pm, on the way home from work.



My daily drive from Mathura Road to Rajouri Garden remains largely uneventful, except for the daily dose of traffic snarls, as I commute during prime working hours.



Last evening, I left half an hour early from office as I had to attend a late night conference call. However, fate had something else in store for me.



At the New Friends Colony Traffic Light, as usual, there was a 15 minute stoppage. I called up my son via the integrated bluetooth connectivity with my car on hands free mode to check if he had completed his homework. The traffic signal changed and traffic started to move, though there were at least 15 vehicles between me and the NFC crossing, including a bus right ahead. As I was ending my call, a man (approx. 20-25 years) started beating the bonnet at the passenger side of my car with the wooden handle of a metallic bar. As I turned to look, he was limping and yelling that I had driven over his foot. For a second I was zapped as I had just engaged the gear and had hardly moved 2-3 feet (traffic was so slow that it was impossible to slot the 2nd gear). I would have surely felt a bump if I had driven over his foot.



This man started yanking at my door, which he could not open as the moment I sit in my car, I engage the central locking. He started screaming for me to open the window. I rolled down the window about 2 inches so that I could hear what he was saying. He continued his yelling, while I shouted back that I had not driven over his foot. In the meantime, I heard some more noise and looking at my side of the rear view mirror, I could see 2 more guys beating at the boot of the car with their fists. There was another guy at my window side who wanted me release the central locking so that they could take the guy to the hospital.



With so much happening, I was confused and panicked big time. To add to it, the bus right behind me started honking badly with only a few centimeters gap between the bus and my car.



I could also see a gentleman in a blue Wagon-R to my right waving his hands and pointing to my car. To my horror, when I looked at the vacant seat, I could see that the guy who was limping had put in his hand into the car and was trying to open it from inside, while clutching at my handbag and Samsung Galaxy Note. I nearly fainted.



Hurriedly, I raised the window and he was forced to release my handbag, but ran off with my mobile, straight into the bus behind me. But this was not the end of the story. The bus grazed my car from the rear, and then shot off.



Too dazed to react, I was literally staring at the bus in the dark. This happened in the middle of traffic with at least 50 vehicles and 10 buses in the immediate vicinity. No one came forward to help, except the gentleman in the blue Wagon-R. But wait, many people were recording the incident on their phones.



It may be impossible to recover the phone, but I want the thugs to be taken to task and punished. In the past, I have actually stopped my car and helped many people in problem on the roads. But not anymore.



It is easy to see one should show presence of mind. However, when 5 guys have surrounded your car, there is not very much you can do. The mobile had details which were important, both personal and official, and was a gift from my husband. Yesterday my car had completed 10000 Kms. on road and I had the precious odo reading clicked for uploading on my Fiesta thread, which is gone for good.



Any suggestions what to do next? I was too shocked to react, but would like to take up the incident with the cops, sans the harassment.



I take full responsibility for having panicked, but if I am a lone commuter, it does not mean that I am a sitting target for being robbed.