About
an year ago, a deadly collision took place between a long-distance
double decker sleeper coach carrying about 39 people and a methane
carrying tanker in the middle of the night in the city of Yanan;
Shanxii province in northern China, killing 36 people on the spot.
The front part of the bus heading to Shaanxi's provincial capital of
Xian from Inner Mongolia, was immediately engulfed by flames and was
seriously damaged. Since most of the passengers were sleeping,
number of fatal casualties has been so high.
The
accident has been quite horrible, yet the real story is not the
accident but something else that happened later. As happens anywhere
else in the world, Police officers and rescuers reached the spot of
the wreckage of the bus and the tanker after some time. Amongst these
officials, who had reached the accident spot, there was a road safety
official Mr. Yang Dacai.
Next
morning, as Chinese media and news papers splashed news of this
horrible accident along with photographs all over the country. A
sharp eyed netizen, @JadeCong noticed that in one of the photographs
of the accident, the road safety official Mr. Yang had a highly
inappropriate grin on his face or in other words, he was seen
laughing. He promptly cropped the picture to accentuate the faux pas
and copy-pasted it onto the Chinese hybrid of Facebook and Twitter,
Sina Weibo, which has more than 300 million subscribers. He wittily
commented on his post, "The official's emotions have
stabilized." The post received about 6,700 shares and 1,600
comments.
Most
of the Chinese netizens felt resentment after seeing the photographs
of this fat bellied official with his “ hands behind the back”
posture which appeared to them as the couldn't-care-less attitude.
Soon someone found out that this official was Yang Dacai, (杨达才)
the boss of Shaanxi's Safety Supervision Bureau! One net user says on
KD Net, a popular discussion forum "When ordinary people die in
an accident, the masses do not really ask you to cover your face with
tears. But in the face of our compatriots losing their precious
lives, you should have the courtesy to at least to show some respect,
right? This is the bottom line of being a human." Another Weibo
user @死心补钙
wrote, "
'Well-fed officials, emaciated people. If officials are skinny, the
people will be well-fed.' This was what we were taught by the teacher
when we were still young…It still applies even though life gets
better now. You can just tell at first glance that people with greasy
hair and fat ears are just up to no good~"
One
sharp nosed netizen then discovered from one of the photographs that
Mr.Yang was wearing a Vacheron Constantin gold dress watch worth of
200,000 to 400,000 yuan. Soon more and more netizens joined in this
hunt and searched old photographs of Mr. Yang on the net and
discovered that he has been wearing other expensive watches as well,
which included a Rolex (Oyster Perpetual) worth 65,000 yuan, an Omega
worth of 40,000 yuan, another Omega worth of up to 40,000 yuan, and a
Rado worth of 30,000 yuan.
In
China, wearing of expensive luxury watches by officials is always the
last straw, which brands them as corrupt. Mr. Yang, besides his
careless attitude was now also thought to be corrupt and outrage grew
against him by leaps and bounds. Finally, the local work safety
administration responded to the matter, by saying that Yang did rush
to the accident site all the way after receiving the news. However
snapshots published on the net tell a different story and netizens
were not satisfied at all. The Communist Party's discipline
commission in Shaanxi, made an investigation into Mr Yang's
"inappropriate behaviour of 'grinning' as well as wearing
luxurious watches" and has found him guilty of "serious
wrongdoing." The discipline commission says that they are
further investigating "trails of [Mr Yang's] other wrongdoing."
Following
a probe, Yang was sacked for "serious wrongdoing" and then
expelled from the Communist Party in February 2013. Finally on 30th
August 2013, Yang Dacai's trial opened at the Xi'an Intermediate
People's Court in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. Before
his trial, he had defended himself saying , that he "used legal
income" to buy a number of watches, saying that the most
expensive one he owned was worth 35,000 yuan ($5,550, £3,420).
However
during trial last week, he seems to have changed his stand and said
that he could not explain where wealth of 5m yuan ($817,000;
£527,195) came from and pleaded guilty to corruption charges. The
Xi'an court found Yang Dacai guilty of taking bribes and possessing
"a huge amount of property of unclear origin." He was
sentenced with a 14 year jail term and all the bribes and illicit
property would be confiscated by the state treasury. For Yang Decai,
it was the most expensive laugh ever.
I am
absolutely awed at this speedy delivery of justice in China. In
India, corruption cases go on for years and if the accused is wealthy,
decades. I have no idea about the way legal courts conduct their
business in China, but the efficiency with which they operate is
definitely note worthy.
Hats
off to Chinese netizens! I am just amazed at the alertness and
investigative nature of Chinese netizens, after they smelled a rat.
This is what is required in India. Our media have lately been doing a
great job regarding digging out scams by Government officials.
Netizens must lend an helping hand to media in India too.
7th
September 2013
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