#Pakistan - Deadly train inferno

Accidents are part of life, but definitely not as frequent as registered by Pakistan Railways. And some of these, like the one Rawalpindi-bound Tezgam met with on Thursday, leaves a deep scar on memory. Seventy four passengers were roasted alive and 41 injured as a non-stationary train caught fire near Rahimyar Khan. Almost cinematically, the red-hot flames leapt out of three bogies packed with passengers as the train kept moving. It took its driver four minutes to stop it, and while it was running some of the panicked passengers jumped out of the burning coaches. Some of them didn't survive, while some suffered multiple fractures. Most of the passengers were on way to Raiwind, near Lahore, to participate in an annual Tableeghi Ijtema. Given absence of record to show who the deceased were only DNA tests would now verify their identities. There are two versions as an answer to a question what actually caused fire- one given by Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed and the other by independent witnesses. According to the minister, it was a blast caused by a gas cylinder, insisting the concerned railways staff did object to its presence, but nobody cared. The private witnesses insist the fire erupted from short-circuiting of air-conditioning system in the Business Class which engulfed the bogies that followed it. But the minister had no answer to the widely-help perception that the filled gas cylinders were not checked because the scanners at Karachi and Hyderabad stations were/are out of order. Let that be so, but how come the body-search conducted at the entry points did not detect something as big as a gas cylinder. Insofar as the question who should inquire into what led to the train inferno is concerned, there too are two answers or positions – while the government would like this to be done by the Railways Ministry the others have demanded a judicial investigation.

Nowhere in the world are the railways free from train-to-train collisions, derailments and fire incidents. Pakistan Railways too had it, but their incidence as recurrent as since Sheikh Rasheed took over as its minister is simply mindboggling. In the 14 months of his stewardship there were no less 80 train accidents that took scores of lives. Only last July 11, a passenger train ran into a stationary freight train near Sadiqabad, causing deaths of 21 passengers. The minster blamed the local staff, refusing to accept the fact that the existing signaling system was no more functional and should have been changed. And, invariably, the minister has been blaming others for these accidents while independent sources describe the rising incidence of accidents as profound deficiency of the railways department. But, on second thought, the minister admitted that ban on filled gas cylinders was relaxed to appease the Tableeghi Jamaat members!

To fit in the ‘Naya Pakistan', he introduced a number of new trains, which were not needed at all. No wonder then quite a few of them are no longer running because the Pakistan railways as it exists on the ground is not good enough to deliver on that demand. The government has no plausible answer to question why have more trains when the system is not capable of handling even the normal load. Although Sheikh Rasheed has announced that “as far as the matter about my resignation is concerned, I will talk about it on Sunday," he must resign without any further loss of time. Enough is enough.

https://www.brecorder.com/2019/11/02/540477/deadly-train-inferno/