Saved a girl from being molested; one month on, he still has the bullet lodged in his leg
NEW DELHI: He limps as he walks holding a stick in his hand. He struggles even to sit on the chair stretching his left leg. The leg has a sharp bullet injury just above the ankle. He folds his denim on the left leg to show the scar left by the bullet that is still lodged in his leg.
Sanjay, a taxi driver, recalls the fateful night of December 19 when he was returning from Rohini and going to his house in Rajokri when suddenly he saw a woman being eve-teased by a man near Pankha Road in West Delhi. He stopped his car and decided to save the girl from the molester. He intervened and a scuffle broke out. Within moments, heavily built Sanjay overpowered the assailant. The assailant fled to the other side of the road threatening Sanjay. He soon returned with a pistol in his hand which he got from his associates standing on the other side. Sanjay was about to sit in the his car when the assailant opened fire at him. He missed the first shot but the second bullet hit Sanjay in his left leg.
However, the real ordeal of Sanjay started after the incident.
“I ran for cover with the bullet injury in my leg. I was bleeding profusely. The man was chasing me and I slipped under a car to hide myself. I laid there for some time. After I moved out, I asked the locals there for help. I pleaded for water from people. No one gave me a glass of water and closed their doors.”
After the police came, the trauma for Sanjay was far from over. Sanjay alleges that the cops were more concerned about completing formalities than rushing him to the hospital.
“I pleaded the policemen to rush me to the hospital before I faint but they were more concerned about the paper work at the spot. I told them that the poison from the bullet might spread but they seemed not to care. I asked them for water and even that was not provided,” Sanjay recalls the horror.
“The police were more concerned about their van. They asked me to spread a paper beneath and not let the blood dirty their van.” After wasting the golden time, the cops took him to DDU, where after getting the X-ray done, he was referred to AIIMS Trauma Center within two hours. Sanjay alleges that the cops left him after that. “My employer took me to Trauma Center where I was kept overnight but again in the morning I was told to go to some other hospital for treatment. My brother took me to RML then. I stayed outside RML until I was admitted in the night on December 20.”
Sanjay still has the bullet in his leg. The man who tried to save a girl from molesters shifted three hospitals in just 9 hours. The poor man now finds it hard to meet the expenses of his medicines but when asked if he will again help someone despite undergoing such a horrible experience, Sanjay replies with a smile “Yes”.