My friend Nitin Vyas has this experience to relate:

“At9.00am on 22nd May on Kanakpura road, close to Thalgatpura Police station. KSRTC bus no. KA 42F 040 ran in to my car from behind.

The rear  of my car was completely damaged . (The estimated cost of repairs is Rs 1 lakh.) The bus drove away from the scene as I took my car to the side of the road..

I went to Thalagatpura Police station at 9.15 am to file an FIR against the bus driver. Arun Thimme  Gowda was in charge of registering complaints. He did not respond for the next three hours. The Sub Inspector was not available at the police station. He arrived at around noon. Then he assigned the job to one ‘writer’ named Ravi.

“Ravi did not do anything till 2.00pm. Finally, I had to pay him Rs 500 to start the FIR writing work. He kept going to Sub Inspector’s room to enquire about some thing. Ravi left at 3.00pm and left the job incomplete..

“The job was assigned to some one else now and this person  started typing the FIR in a standard format. He kept going out of the police station every now and then. I had  to pay him another Rs 500 so that he would complete the FIR work which he did at about 5.00pm.

“The FIR papers were sent to Arun Thimme  Gowda for his approval and signature. He demanded Rs 2000/- for signing the FIR papers which I paid him to get the copy of it.  I paid Rs 200  to other police personnel  for guiding me through the entire process. So, altogether, I paid Rs 3200 as ‘chaipani’ expenses,  and spent 9 hours in the police station to get the FIR.”

Nitin has yet to pay (or get the car insurance to pay) the money for the repair of the car. 

Our police processes seem to be a farce. There is no accountablity on the part of bus drivers when they cause accidents. The common citizen cannot get anything done without resorting to bribery. It is a sad story that I have had to related here…sad that it is so common. “Chaipani” seems to be the name of the game, Anna Hazare and his ilk are just a drama that makes no sense.