SAHIWAL: The remains of Ahmed Mujtaba – the young Air Traffic Controller of Civil Aviation Authority – were received from the Nishtar Hospital, Multan by his father Prof Ikramullah of Sahiwal.

He was burnt to death along with 23 other passengers of the Daewoo Express bus during his travel to Karachi. All the passengers of the bus, and its driver, were burnt alive in a 40 minutes fire that erupted after a collision with an oil tanker that was carrying 40,000 litres of oil near Jalalpur Pirwala on M-5 on August 17.

The collision led to the fire, killing 23 people on the spot while two other who had tried to escape by breaking the bus windows succumbed to burns later on.

Mujtaba’s father, Ikramullah, a professor of English at Sahiwal college and his mother, a professor of sociology at the same college, refused to see the remains of their only son.

He was identified through his parents’ DNA as were other deceased identified. Some other families also could not gather the courage to see the remains of burnt bodies of their loved ones in the hospital mortuary and they requested the officials to seal the bodies in coffins.

Mujtaba, a mechanical engineering graduate from NUST, Islamabad, was inducted two years back in the CAA as Air Traffic Controller and was posted at the Karachi airport. He was traveling from Lahore to Karachi on the bus, which met the fateful accident.

Mujtaba and other victims’ families did not receive a single condolence message from the bus service as it was alleged that the accident happened due to negligence of the bus driver as he had fallen asleep while driving and the bus hit by an oil tanker.

What’s more surprising is that the oil tanker driver and his helper succeeded in escaping from the site of the accident while the tanker was having neither the company logo, nor any registration number. The question how an unregistered oil tanker could use the motorway without any registration number plate is still unanswered. It also brings into question the role of law enforcement departments and police, raising doubts of their involvement to help the oil tanker company escape any punitive action.

A case was registered on the complaint of Malik Nazir Hussain, SI of the Motorway Police, against an unidentified oil tanker driver with Jalalpur Pirwala Police Station but no progress was made.

Prof Ikram demanded the bus company must conduct an inquiry into the incident and make its report public. He also demanded compensation for those who died in the accident because of alleged negligence by the driver. He alleged that the driver of the bus came from Abbottabad to Lahore and he was directly given the next bus for Karachi without any proper rest.

The FIR and Motorway Police report categorically stated that the fatal accident happened because of the bus driver’s negligence.

An official at the Daewoo Express, Lahore Office, said as the bus was running from Lahore to Karachi terminals so the compensation would be given by these two terminals’ offices. But the company representative did not share any compensation details except claiming that the company was working and all would be done as per the government laws.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2022