Nagpur police turn to 'vaastu' to curb road accidents

NAGPUR: Whatever next? The Nagpur rural police are “experimenting” with a vaastu shastra remedy to “banish bad energies” along the state and national highways to curb fatal accidents.

The move has, however, caused bad vibes among anti-superstition activists, who are terming it a “most unfortunate and objectionable” act that “legitimises in the public eye a practice that has no scientific base or rationale explanation”.

Small vaastu pyramids (more like piles of stones), structured on the lines of the Egypt pyramids, have been installed at 12 accident-prone spots on heavy-traffic highways in the belief that those would transform “negative energies into positive fields” and avert mishaps. Superintendent of police (Nagpur rural) Yashasvi Yadav claimed accidents did drop ever since pyramids were installed beneath both sides of the road along the spots but he declined to attribute the reduction in accidents to vastu-shastra.

Yadav categorically told DNA: “It’s true the accidents have dropped sharply, but it may be sheer coincidence. It may be a cumulative effect of this and a number of policing measures, including installation of speed-guns, initiated by us.” “We can’t say anything conclusively today; we’ll continue the experiment for another six-seven months at other accident-prone spots to derive any inference,” said Yadav, who was approached by a city-based vastu expert and consultant Sushil Fatepuria with a request that he should be allowed to place his pyramids on the most accident-prone spots to see if his “remedy” worked.

The rising accident cases causing 500 deaths annually in the rural parts of the district were a concern for the police. With almost a hundred new vehicles hitting the road every day in Nagpur distirct, the menace is only set to grow, the police said. “In last three months, we’ve also caught over 300 persons for drunken driving, and terminated licenses of many people who did not have documents,” he said, even as his office monitors the results of this phenomenon.

But Fatepuria is jubilant at the outcome. “Officials and public representatives may not admit in the open given their position, but it’s a science and it works the way it does,” he said. “No one should have a problem experimenting with it.”

The stretch of the Mumbai-Kolkata National Highway near Nagpur city is among 12 spots where pyramids have been  placed.There are six highways connecting Nagpur to the state and country.

The Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti activist and senior social worker, Umesh Choubey, condemned it and expressed surprise how the police could take refuge in such measures to tackle accidents. “Even if we take it as an experiment, it’s a serious issue given that it’s being followed by the police, which is a state arm and so it undoubtedly gives legitimacy to vaastu shastra, which has no scientific base.”

“The police should do policing,” he said, “but if they start resorting to such means, it’s unfortunate.”

Fatepuria retorts: “If people don’t understand they should not comment on this science. “It’s not something that I have developed; it’s an ancient wisdom that I am simply putting to use for public benefit on my own,” said the 45-year-old consultant, who runs a vaastu shastra research centre at Nagpur. “There’s no harm in experimenting; I am not charging anything or taking time of the government machinery; if it works, it’ll be in public interest.”

Fatepuria had identified the 12 most accident-prone spots along the heavy-traffic state and national highways leading into the orange city to install vaastu pyramids along the roads. Those spots, according to Fatepuria, are high in what are, in vaastu parlance, called negative fields. “The pyramids quell bad energies and create positive vibes.” “We use a special pendulum to check energy fields, which is called dowsing. Its oscillations and direction help us decide the presence of negative energy. We place the pyramid underground there,” Fatepuria said.

“It’s all nonsense,” shot back 75-year-old Choubey. “It’s all in the mind. It gives you a mental peace and you start viewing everything around you as changing.”