Vehicles with defective gas cylinders are death traps for innocent people and the government should take stern measures to make effective vehicles' fitness testing system for ensuring safety of life, said Dr Fowzia Siddiqui of Global Aafia Movement in a statement here on Sunday.
Referring to the sad mishap of burning alive of 16 innocent schoolchildren and a teacher in fire in a school van near Gujrat due to leakage of cylinder gas previous day, she said it is a national tragedy, but still our administration is in deep slumber. The loss of loved ones in preventable accidents is unbearable and catastrophic. If such a catastrophe happened in any civilised country its administrative bosses would resign and faced court trial, but here in Pakistan this huge human loss is being accepted as a trivial daily life matter. These precious lives cannot be brought back but we have to prevent any further incident or we will all be held responsible.
Dr Fowzia Siddiqui said to remember these innocent victims a candlelight vigil was arranged by Aafia Movement at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Saturday night, where a large number of schoolchildren and human rights activists, with tears welling eyes, lit candles to remember the innocent victims of Gujrat school van tragedy.
She said the whole nation is in the state of shock and grief due to Gujrat incident. She said it was the height of negligence that a preventable vehicle fitness issue was neglected and it took so many innocent lives. She said the installation of substandard CNG cylinders in vehicles and blatant violation of vehicle inspection rules have made our vehicles 'live bombs on wheels'. She said in Pakistan fake vehicle fitness is made for a few hundred rupees which is a cruel joke with human life. She in past may such mishaps had already taken place and now the Gujrat tragedy has once again proved that we are indifferent. These kids could have been anybody's kids, they could have been ours.
She hoped that the coming set of rulers after sitting in assemblies would pass effective laws so as to prevent the loss of innocent lives in such brazen road accidents. She said sadly in our country the human blood is cheaper than water and, even though we have some great laws passed yet they are not implemented.