Shot,techie walked 100m; none came to help

Prateek,shot and robbed of his Honda City car by bike-borne assailants shortly after midnight on Sunday when he was returning home from a wedding in Ashok Nagar,was rushed to Maharaja Agrasen Hospital in Punjabi Bagh. After a couple of hours in the ICU where they tried to revive him,he was declared dead.

The 24-year-old was the only son. On Tuesday,his picture hung on the wall,garlanded. People,mostly neighbours and family,walked in and out of the ground-floor house,paying their condolences,offering help,just being there.

The father sat outside the house,mourning. Neighbours sat around him,a few had left already. Suresh Kumar Trikha,a manager with the Oriental Bank,was slumped on a plastic chair,his face expressionless. A neighbour said the father had undergone a heart surgery a couple of years ago,and this wasn’t good for him. They had been planning their son’s marriage too,he said.

The mother fainted inside. She had seen her only son gasping for breath. Doctors had been to the house,gave her injections so she could sleep.

Six months ago,Prateek,a software engineer with Steria India Ltd.,a Noida-based company,had been offered a transfer to the UK. But he refused. Being the only son,he was close to his parents,and knew he had to be there for them.

“He was a nice soul,very well-mannered,” said his uncle Rajesh Trikha. “The whole colony came. Something like this has never happened here. Everyone felt safe until now.”

“The family is trying to cope with the loss,” said cousin Varun Agarwal. “It is difficult. We are all in great shock.”

In the picture,blown up and framed for the rituals for the departed,Prateek is wearing a blue tie,a jacket,his hair gelled.

Prateek studied at the NC Jindal Public School and then went to IP University to study engineering. He had been working with the software firm for the last three years and drove to office in his car. “But nothing had ever happened,” his uncle said.

On Sunday night,Prateek was shot near the Ram Mandi locality,where police barricades had been put up. But there was no constable,no patrol car,no one to help him.