Think before you act

Rajesh was an auto-rickshaw driver in Delhi. His family was preparing for Navratri celebrations in Karnal and he had promised to join them. But that day never came. He was brutally killed by a group of men.

“He was beaten up mercilessly by a group of men just because the rear of their car was nudged by his rickshaw,” says his mother, Sashi Bala. He begged those men to spare him because he had small children, but they beat him up with bricks. The men, who were drunk, also shoved his face into an overflowing drain and left him to die. In one fell swoop, the children lost their father, a wife her husband and the mother, her son. “Because of a moment of rage, our family has been destroyed,” says Sashi Bala.

Today Rajesh's wife Sageeta makes ends meet by running a stall on the street. “Those men never even gave a thought that this man might have a family—what did they lose? We lost everything,” she says. Sashi Bala wishes they would have controlled their anger, “You can pay for the damage to a car, but how do you bring a human being back to life?”