GUJRANWALA: Seventeen people, 11 of them army personnel, lost their lives and almost 90 were injured on Thursday when the locomotive and three carriages of a special train carrying soldiers to Kharian from Pano Aqil plunged into a canal after a pre-Partition bridge collapsed near Wazirabad.

Among the dead were Lt Colonel Amir Jadoon, his wife and two children, Lt Col Rashid, Major Adil and Lieutenant Kashif. Col Jadoon was the commander of a unit of Pakistan Army’s engineering battalion. The unit had boarded the train at Pano Aqil cantonment, Sindh, and was bound for Kharian cantonment in Punjab to take part in military exercises.

Waziribad lies 100 kilometres to the north of Lahore and is 30km from Gujranwala.

Talking to reporters, Railways Minister Saad Rafique said sabotage could not be ruled out. “It is the first crash in the history of Pakistan Railways where a bridge collapsed under such mystifying circumstances,” he observed, quoting engineers.

Sabotage suspected, says military official

The Reuters news agency quoted a military official as saying “we suspect that this was an act of sabotage and the planks on the rail were tampered with”.

But the district coordination officer (DCO) and Gujranwala region’s police chief disagreed with the sabotage notion, putting down the tragedy to the obsolescent bridge. According to one official, the structure was built way back in 1906.

On the other hand, senior Railway officials brushed aside assumptions that the bridge had anything to do with the accident, saying that a train, Pakistan Express, had crossed the bridge only 90 minutes ago.

Rescue teams faced obstacles in extricating passengers trapped in the three carriages because the flow of water in the Lower Chenab Canal was unusually high. The irrigation department had to close the canal immediately.

According to an administration of the official, 80 passengers had been rescued while four were missing.

Two helicopters were pressed in for carrying the injured to the Combined Military Hospital in Gujranwala and nearby government hospitals. The Punjab government declared an emergency in hospitals in the vicinity and told all doctors as well as paramedical staff to report for duty.

Our Staff Reporter adds from Lahore: The federal government’s inspector of railways (FGIR) will submit a report about the accident within 72 hours.

“Mian Arshad, the FGIR, has reached the spot along with his team and inspected the track as well as the collapsed bridge,” said a senior official of the Pakistan Railways (PR) at its headquarters in Lahore.

In reply to a question, the official said the PR had decided to hold an independent inquiry in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Railways Act 1890.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2015

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