A FRIEND OR A FOE...

-NISHTHA GAUTAM

What happens when your very “dear” friends become your very “enemies”? When you were small you thought monsters lived under your bed, and you were too scared to get up in the night else those monsters will kill and eat you. What happens when your very friends turn out to be your monsters from under the bed? Friendship is a bond based on trust, honesty and sacrifice. Like other relationships, it is void of any malice and stands strong in your hardships and merry times. Then why does it turn into bloodshed?

On the chilly evening of 12 December, Sumit (17) told his parents that he was going to his friend’s home for borrowing his notebook. Who would have thought that his dead body would be found on the railway tracks next morning? The head was severed by a sharp object and it was bleeding profusely when the body was found, thus indicating that the boy was hit in his head and then left for dead on the railway tracks. The police claimed that Sumit was hit by the train, but his kin claimed that he was murdered by his “friends”, and that there was a girl involved in the murder. They were all juvenile, still in their middle teens, and they dared to commit this deed to their own friend. Sumit’s brother said that the girl who was present when this horrendous act was committed stands responsible for his brother’s death. Infatuation is common among teens at this age, but when that infatuation becomes an obsession, it turns out to be quite fatal, as it did for Sumit.

Had the boy ever thought that his own friends would turn out to be his demons? They were all about to enter adulthood, this is the age when maturity comes on its own. And they decided to kill their own friend.  No one gave them the right to take someone’s life. Even the police department tried to subdue the fact that the boy was murdered, covering up for the criminals and making people see it as an accident. That’s how the police department shows it’s incapability to solve such crimes and rather conceal them to avoid public wrath. But this doesn’t solve the case, does it?

Juvenile delinquency has become a serious and common issue today. But since this was the first case that I witnessed myself, I had to write something for the youth and the coming generations. Your parents never raise you to be a criminal, they have expectations, which you have to fulfil no matter what. Your friends, they trust you with their secrets, knowing that you would not spill them out to anyone. To be a good friend is your responsibility, just like being a good son or a daughter is. Then why do these juveniles commit these shameful deeds. Is it because they act even before thinking? Well, we all have to think over that. After all, it’s us that can change this world and free ourselves from these demons.