Fauja Singh, a legendary marathon runner died in hit-and-run accident recently. It happens so that in 2022 alone, over 30,400 individuals lost their lives in such cases in India.
owever, why do drivers run away after hitting somebody? Why would police usually label an accident as a hit-and-run case so that they do not have to investigate further? And is it possible to diminish the increasing number of the hit-and-run cases in India?
Akshay Kumar Singh, 16 years old, was a swimming trainee at the national-level, and on the night of 5 th May 2009; he was dancing at a wedding in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh. There was an instant stop of the band. His father, Rakesh Singh went aside to check what had happened when he was told that his son and another guest at the wedding had been run over by a truck. The truck driver ran away even though he was aware that he had run over two individuals.
My friend Rakesh Singh remembered the accident in these words, “His face was totally disfigured, and I could not identify him except his shirt.” They never came back to be normal after what happened in their family.
A Father’s Fight for Justice
The police did not move further besides an FIR. Rakesh Singh is an engineer in one of the most well-known energy PSUs and he was not ready to see his son as another victim of a hit-and-run accident in India where these unfortunate incidents are on the increase. He embarked on a lone campaign to track the murderer of his son. Although this ultimately succeeded, the system did not back him.
On his way to ration shop just before nightfall, July 14, 2025, in his ancestral village in Jalandhar, Punjab, legendary marathon runner, Fauja Singh, was hit and killed as he crossed the road.
This is unlike most cases of hit and run where the cases are seldom investigated and the families of the victims lack a closure, Fauja singh died, but it was on the media because he was a well-known personality. It is this pressure that compelled police to action. A young man, who had just come back to Canada, and was driving, was arrested.
How Did India Become the Hit-and-Run Capital?
The situation is bleak according to statistics. Even in Jalandhar rural place, where Fauja Singh met his death, all the 117 road accident deaths were the result of a hit and run incident. What is worse, in the national capital Delhi, 49 percent of death on the road is a hit and run case.
India is not only the global leader among the number of deaths due to road accidents but also the number of deaths when an accident happens but the driver of the vehicle simply goes. As per the recent records of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), over 30,400 fatalities occur in hit-and-run situations in India on annual basis in 2022. It has climbed significantly by 17% as compared to the preceding year. According to the government records, more than 168,000 people were killed in road accidents in India alone in 2022.
No Effort to Understand Root Causes
Did some potholes make the driver swerve and crash into a motorcyclist? Was the drive under the influence and travelling at high speed? Did a child run out of the road after a ball? Or was the driver unfortunate to attempt to hit a wayward animal?These questions often go unanswered because investigations rarely dig deep into the causes. Lack of accountability, poor infrastructure, inadequate law enforcement, and public apathy contribute to a system where victims are forgotten and culprits go unpunished.
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