This past Thursday was a sad day - at least 35 people were killed and many more grievously hurt in two accidents. At least 24 died in a train accident while 12 lost their lives in a bus accident. These accidents have been attributed to human error and bad weather. The train accident, attributed by Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed to "human negligence", was in fact a failure of the signal system which remains as antiquated as it was in the early days of the British rule. In terms of the much-needed modernisation of railways system not much has been done since then. At Walhar, the non-descript railway station between Rahimyar Khan and Sadiqabad, the Quetta-bound Akbar Express rammed into a stationary freight train at loop-line. Most likely, the track which was to reconnect with mainline after the freight train was shunted unto the loop-line, was not yet done when Akbar Express entered the yard on its non-stop passage. Apparently, the signal system at Walhar was too slow to cope with the urgency dictated by increased number of trains. Since shortcut to everything has become an irresistible national habit the railways minister too appears to be wanting to usher in Imran Khan's 'Naya Pakistan'. He wants more trains, while the existing railways wherewithal is incapable of handling even its present workload. Some time back, in this very space, we had cautioned the minister against launching more trains. We had asked him to work on strengthening the existing operations, rehabilitating the track, procuring new coaches and filling some 10,000 vacancies that exist. We had said this in the wake of an exactly similar accident near Hyderabad. And the irony is, that in between these two deadly crashes - we are not talking here about scores of other accidents and derailments courtesy Sheikh Rasheed's wilting as windmills - he 'made' Prime Minister Imran Khan launch one more train named Sir Syed Express.
The other accident we mentioned above took place early Thursday morning when a Lahore-bound speedy bus skid off the M-1 near Taxila causing 11 deaths and injuries to thrice that number. It was not because of rain that the bus went off the road and turned turtle; it happened because driver had one hand on the steering wheel his other held a mobile phone to his ear, unmindful of the high speed the bus was at. Given the urge for shortcuts this was not the concern of the bus company that the driver should have been careful during the rain and not pushed about reaching destination as early as possible so that he can pick up passengers for return journey before sunrise. It was the unquenchable greed on the part of the bus company, care-two-hoots on the part of the driver and absence of speed-control mechanism, both human and technical, on the part of the concerned motorway police that took lives of its passengers
In the wake of a spate of deadly train accidents, would the concerned minister for railways abide by the time honoured tradition to tender his resignation? The opposition has called for his resignation. In 2017, Imran Khan had asked for resignation of the then railways minister, Khawaja Saad Rafique after the Lodhran accident. Elsewhere in functioning democracies, ministers do resign following major accidents resulting in loss of lives. Alas, but not in Pakistan - the Sheikh is not likely to resign. And the prime minister, too, is not keen on that; instead of asking for his explanation, if not resignation, he shifted the blame on to the "decades of neglect of railway infrastructure". How ironic it is that the Imran-led administration seems to have been reflecting the unkindness that is too common inside and outside Islamabad. But that is not going to work - if not the people the old worn-out rail tracks and failing signal systems would enforce their remit.