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EVEN in the battle-hardened milieu of Pakistani polity, the pall cast over the country during the Eid break ought to rightly take time to dissipate. First, there was the terrible tragedy in Parachinar. It stands out because of the shocking apathy of the state towards the growing evidence over the years of militancy in the region.
Then, what occurred near Bahawalpur is distinctive because of the near-criminal governmental incapacities and inefficiencies it exposed. Early in the morning on June 25 — the weekend preceding Eid — an oil tanker overturned near the Safeerwala village. It was carrying petrol to nearly full capacity (50,000 litres). The fuel soon started leaking from the stricken vehicle.
Those familiar with the realities of Pakistan will, even while grieving, not be surprised at what happened next. As news of the accident spread, people from nearby localities started converging on the spot by the dozens. Devastatingly, the fuel caught fire. Some 190 people died in the ensuing inferno and afterwards in hospital. Scores were injured. Most of the dead at the scene were burned to the point of being unrecognisable so that a mass funeral had to be held.
In the aftermath, there continues to be much in the press and amongst the chattering classes about whom to blame. (These quarters, after all, are far removed from the dozens of village families searching for family members who have vanished, hampered in equal part by a lack of knowledge about who they ought to turn to, and poverty compounded by haplessness.)
Survival is for those who can make their own arrangements.
What caused the tanker to overturn in the first place? A week on, there are no conclusive answers. Shell Pakistan, on whose behalf the tanker was, on contract to Marwat Enterprises transport company, carrying the fuel, has said in its primary report to the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority, that “The tank lorry was travelling at 35kms per hour […]. […] a passenger bus after overtaking the tank lorry applied harsh break in front of the tank lorry. To avoid collision from behind, the driver moved the tank lorry
to left hand side of the road on the soft shoulder which resulted in roll over of the tank lorry”.
If we cannot yet conclusively lay blame for the accident, what then of the ensuing chaos? Why were people allowed to congregate around the stricken vehicle? Where were police and emergency services that ought to have cordoned off the location?
Again, the role of the state seems minimal except for a few individuals that, in their own capacities, would have been lauded as heroes had catastrophe been averted. A few testimonies are available. It seems that Motorway policemen Taqqi Haider and Muhammad Irfan did their utmost to stop people from gathering around the overturned vehicle, even using some form of a public address system to order an evacuation. No one listened. The driver of the tanker, Gul Muhammad, also recorded a statement with the police, saying that he had tried his best to similarly make people see sense. No one paid attention, he said, shortly before he succumbed to his injuries on Wednesday.
Which brings up the vital question: why did people show up in the first place? Here is where sympathy for the victims has been adulterated by nastiness: many of them were there with jerry cans and buckets, canisters and tin cans, to try and collect some of the fuel. And thus, say some hard-hearted persons, the tragedy that befell them was, in a way, their own fault.
But look at this another way: what does the state of Pakistan teach — in a hundred different ways — except that each and every one of its citizens is in it on his own? The shortages are endemic: electricity, gas, water, sanitation … the list is endless. Survival is for those who can make their own arrangements. The state of Pakistan may not offer too many freedoms to the teeming multitudes, but certainly amongst them are, for example, the freedom to starve, or to have a child die of a curable ailment for want of competent medical treatment. In such circumstances, is it any wonder that people would throng to the site of an accident if there was a chance that they could collect a pittance of a commodity that might buy bread for a day or so?
This ought to be the context in which the nameless souls that perished in the Bahawalpur inferno ought to be remembered — for nameless, for many of us, they will remain. In a case of supreme irony, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has promised that the heirs of all those lost in this tragedy will be given jobs — would that someone had focused on the detail that had they already had jobs and security, many might not have needed to throng to the doomed tanker in the first place.
The writer is a member of staff.
Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2017
