“The railway station is part of the federal setup and the federal government is responsible for its security.” Hence spoke the Chief Minister of Punjab a day following an attack on the Lahore City Railway Station, which killed a porter and a police constable, and injured several others.

And so, a bomb blast at the busiest railway station in the country was blamed on lapses in security arrangements and it triggered a much repeated blame game between Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Punjab government and Pakistan Peoples Party’s government at the centre.

Metal detectors, security cameras and walk through gates at the station were not functioning properly and the CCTV monitoring room was closed.

Who is to blame for these lapses?

The provincial government, which runs Sasti Roti and free laptop computers schemes, did not take too long to avert the responsibility on the federal government by inquiring: “Why was the budget of 2.8 million rupees required for repair work at the station not provided by Islamabad?”

PML-N leader and special aid to the Khadim-i-Aala Khwaja Nazeer claimed that the federal government did not provide the fund needed for maintaining the station’s security setup.

Meanwhile, CCPO Lahore Aslam Tareen said he was “satisfied” with the security measures in place at the station and said the police were trying to investigate how a bag full of explosives managed to get through despite the use of scanners at entry points.

Following the attack, police deployment at all major railway stations across the country was increased, in some case, five-folds.

It then remains to be explained how the chief of the city’s police department can be satisfied with security arrangements when none of the security equipments deployed at the site of terrorists attack were functioning normally.

Whether people die or survive these attacks, governance at provincial level or federal – policy seems to be the same: “Who cares?”

Should the apex court of the country intervene and take another “suo moto notice”?

Rather than blaming each other, the authorities must pay more attention towards tightening up security measures at public places which are prone to more terrorists attack in a country which has lost hundreds and thousands of innocent people already for others’ causes?

The author is a multimedia producer at Dawn.com