NEW DELHI: In a quiet Dwarka home, a single mother moves like a shadow through rooms filled with reminders of dreams cut short. Medals still hang on the walls. Handwritten quotes remain etched in place, bearing witness to a future that never came. Since February 3, an oppressive silence has enveloped the house — the day her 23-year-old son, Sahil Dhaneshra, was killed in a road accident.
For his mother, Inna Makan, he was Kabir — her only child, her anchor, and her hope.
Sahil was in the final semester of his BBA course and had charted a clear academic path ahead. He had secured admission to a reputed university in Manchester and was preparing to fly to the UK in September to pursue his master’s degree. Independent and driven, he handled his university applications himself and worked part-time at an insurance firm to ease the financial burden on his mother.
On the morning of February 3, Sahil left home for work as usual. Around noon, Inna returned and was about to call him when her phone rang. Police delivered the devastating news: Sahil, riding a motorcycle, had been hit by an SUV near a college in Dwarka’s Sector 11. He died on the spot. A cab driver was critically injured in the collision involving three vehicles.
“When I reached there, he was lying motionless on the road,” Inna recalls. “People were standing around, making videos, while my son lay there dying.”
Investigations later revealed that the SUV was being driven by a 17-year-old minor, who was not legally permitted to drive. A case was registered at the Dwarka South police station under charges of rash and negligent driving and causing death due to negligence. The minor was apprehended, produced before the Juvenile Justice Board, and sent to an observation home. He was later granted interim bail to appear for his Class X examinations.
Inna raised Sahil as a single parent, often struggling to keep his education on track. When private schooling became financially untenable, Sahil completed Classes XI and XII from a government school before enrolling in the BBA programme.
Inside his room, his vibrant spirit lingers. Quotes he wrote on the walls — including one that reads, “Obsession is going to beat talent every time” — sit beside sports medals earned over the years.
Refusing to let her son’s death fade into statistics, Inna has turned to social media to demand accountability. An Instagram page titled Justice for Sahil has garnered over a million views, while an online petition has crossed 3,000 signatures.
“I will keep posting till the day I get an answer as to why action can’t be taken against someone who was never supposed to drive in the first place,” she said.
The petition calls for strict legal action against the underage driver, accountability of the vehicle owner who allowed illegal driving, and stronger enforcement of traffic laws to prevent similar tragedies.
For Inna, justice is not just about punishment — it is about ensuring that no other parent has to live in a house filled with echoes of what might have been.
