A girl, walking across the lane is picked up by three men and forced into the car. All the windows are closed and the car maneuvers through the busy roads and finally reaches an abandoned area. The dead body of the girl is thrown out of the car!!
Well, doesn’t that look like a flick from some movie? And what has that got to do with the heading of this article? Dear Readers, we all are aware of the fact that such incidences do happens in reality too. Now, let us dwell a bit more deeper into the case. The car maneuvered through the busy roads and still the outsiders did not know that there is a girl inside the car who needed help. What happened inside the car, nobody knows. When she was killed, nobody saw. And with these facts we can zero down to one thing – the car windows were tinted.
Did that drive you crazy? Well, a month earlier, the decision given by the Supreme Court drove the entire nation crazy. The highest court enforced ban on use of tinted glass in 4-wheelers. The decision was taken as Police officials claimed that many crimes were committed by the offenders who used cars with such tinted glasses to avoid public gaze and to hide their identity. Thus, a ban on tinted glasses was made effective from May 4, 2012. And in case you are found driving a car with tinted glass windows, your purse might get lighter by a few bucks. However, the court granted exemption to few VIPs and VVIPs due to security reasons.
But the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989, says the glasses of windscreen and rear windows of vehicles should have a visual light transmission of 70 percent and for side windows it should be at least 50 percent. For this the court responded by saying that these are the norms for the manufacturers and once the vehicles comes in the hands of the customer, no one is allowed to tamper with the window glasses to reduce the visibility.
So, the decision has been taken and as they say, obey the law. But then, this created havoc among the vehicle owners. First, people were required to change the window glasses to those that have 50 to 70 percent visibility as per the rules mandated by Central Motor Vehicle Rule. And now suddenly, they have been asked to remove these glasses instantly.If, they obey the rule, they might end up spending around Rs. 300 to Rs. 1200, depending upon the car they drive. And if they do not, then they pay the fine. There is also a part of the group who think, policies keep changing and perhaps, Government might revoke their decision very soon. Will the new rule help in reduction of crimes, let us leave that to the time.
What the Government needs to do is, to ban manufacturers from producing and distributing sun films which don’t allow visibility. Thus only the RTO approved kind should be available off the shelf. This will solve the problem at the root itself, with no one having access to non RTO approved sun films in the first place. So in the case, when a cop finds a vehicle where the occupants are not seen, he can immediately catch them and penalize them accordingly. The solution to prevent speeding is not to ban cars altogether, right?
