After Suicide Attempts, Ambulance Becomes Fixture At Collectorate Hearings In MP's Neemuch
· Free Press Journal
Neemuch (Madhya Pradesh): An ambulance now stands parked outside the Collectorate during public hearings, not for the elderly, as officials claim, but, evidence suggests, because people have begun arriving at the hearing with more than applications.
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They are often coming with kerosene and even poison that they use\consume when they fail to get 'justice'.
And the administration has responded not by asking why they are taking such steps, but by preparing to tackle such untoward incidents.
The public hearing at the Collectorate once meant queues of people carrying papers, tired officials, and citizens waiting their turn to be heard. That image has changed.
Security guards now watch not just for order, but for the flicker of desperation on a petitioner's face. An ambulance idles nearby, its presence a quiet admission that someone, someday soon, might need it.
The fear is not hypothetical. Days earlier, a man locked in a dispute over a farm access path doused himself with kerosene in front of officials and allegedly attempted to set himself on fire. He survived only because someone intervened in time.
The same day, another petitioner, seeking justice after losing his livestock to electrocution and finding none, allegedly swallowed poison.
He was rushed to hospital in a vehicle borrowed from the CMHO because no ambulance was stationed at the Collectorate.
That absence has since been filled. But what does it mean that an institution built to hear grievances now equips itself, instead, for the aftermath of grievances left unresolved?
Deputy Collector Shruti Bhaydia insists the ambulance is meant only for elderly visitors and denies any link to the earlier incidents.
Yet no ambulance had ever been stationed there before. It appeared only after two people allegedly tried to end their lives during the public hearing.
The ambulance reflects growing despair, where people fear complaints go unheard and believe only extreme acts draw attention, turning public hearings from places of hope into symbols of desperation.
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