Man in wheelchair

everythingchangedaftertheaccident.wesurvived but I received the maximum injuries though I was on the rear seat.”

“During my two-year long treatment at PGI, I observed that most injured persons being brought to the emergency section were in theroadtrafficinjurycategory.thatwaswhen I decided to do something constructive.”

He formed Arrivesafe, a road safety NGO, in 2006.

“Theideaaboutcampaigningagainstliquor vends adjoining highways came to me five yearsago,ayearbeforeiactuallymovedanapplicationinthepunjabandharyanahighcourt in October 2012. I did lot of ground work, went through excise policies of different states, read the pattern of road accidents on highways and decidedtotakethemattertocourt,”sidhusaid.

Inmarch2014,thehighcourtorderedthat liquor vends should not be either visible or accessible from the national and state highways. Within six days, Punjab and Haryana governments went to the Supreme Court with the pleathatliquorvendsbeallowedonstatehighways, offering to shut them down on national highways.

Thecourtnamedsidhuarespondentinthe case. Since December last, when the Supreme Courtruledthatnoliquorvendwillbeallowed within 500 metres of a state or national highway,histwocellphoneshavenotstoppedringing.

“People start calling from early morning. Thecallsdon’tstopuntillateatnight.thereare afewcallsofappreciation,somemediaqueries and mostly threatening calls from people in the liquor business,” said Sidhu, a resident of Sector21inchandigarh.onecaller,sidhusaid, even offered him Rs 25 crore. He received 10 calls when this reporter met him. Two calls were purportedly from diplomatic missions, seeking to find out the average number of vends on highways.

Sidhu told one of the callers that on the 291-km stretch from Panipat to Jalandhar, therewere185liquorvends.thisinformation, he said, was given to him by the NHAI in response to an RTI query.

Sidhu said it was wrong to say that the Supreme Court order would jeopardise people’slivelihood.“peopledon’tgotorestaurants just to drink,” he said.

The son of a retired librarian of a governmentcollege,sidhusaidheandhislawyer,ravi Kamalgupta,borealltheexpensesofthefouryear

legal battle, first in the High Court, and later in the Supreme Court. “We have spent approximately around Rs 9 lakh, including all expenses of my travel to Delhi, 22 times in a single month,” said Sidhu, adding he had travelled 50,000 km across Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan in a custom-built vehicle collecting information for his legal battle.

Sidhu makes a living from website designingandiscurrentlyattachedtoseveralgovernment and private institutions in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. His elder brother, Pritpalsinghsidhu,isacaptainwiththeindian Army. His twin sister, Harpreet Kaur, lives in Canada.

Sidhu said he was quite sure that the apex court’s order would be implemented strictly bystategovernments.“íwillbemonitoringit,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sidhu has already launched his next campaign. Last September, a school busplungedintoadraininavillage35kmfrom Amritsar. Seven children were killed and 20 had serious injuries. The bus was being driven athighspeed,andthebridgeoverthedraindid nothaverailings.theaccidentpromptedsidhu to carry out a survey of bridges, and he found 100 bridges without railings. He filed a PIL in the Supreme Court. The next date is April 10.