National Assembly Standing Committee on Railways has expressed serious concerns over the Railways' safety measures taken for passengers, observing these are not compatible with the international safety measures adopted by other countries.
The senior general manger railways informed the committee that there could be many reasons behind the fire incident in Tezgam Express train including leakage of gas cylinder owned by the passengers of Tabligi Jammat or electricity short circuiting or it was a sabotage activity.
However, the final inquiry report is still awaited from federal government inspector of railways (FGIR) which will be completed in two weeks and it will unearth true facts. He further informed that 15 employees of railways have been charge-sheeted due to the said incident.
The meeting of the Standing Committee on Railways was held under the chairmanship of Muhammad Mueen Wattoo here on Wednesday. After the condolence reference and prayers for the deceased passengers of the incident of Tezgam Express, the committee approved the minutes of its last meeting.
Ministry of Railways briefed the committee regarding the recent fire tragedy of 7 UP train Tezgam Express at Chani Goth, tehsil Liaquatpur, district Rahim Yar Khan.
The secretary railways informed the committee that the train was routed from Karachi to Peshawar and at 6.14am on 31/10/2019, the driver came to know about the fire so he stopped the train immediately and detached the bogies set on fire but till that many passengers got wounded over there.
He informed the committee that during the incident, 75 passengers died up to 12/11/2019 and out of then 63 dead bodies were handed over to their relatives and remaining 12 will be handed over in next two to three days.
The federal government inspector of railway was assigned to enquire the matter thoroughly and meanwhile the federal minister for railways has already announced the relief package out of insurance money for the dead and injured passengers.
Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmed also informed that he has requested the Prime Minister to announce further relief for the victims of the incident. He also thanked Pak Army personnel who reached the site and helped a lot to transfer the passengers to nearby hospital and Nishtar Hospital Multan through air ambulance.
The chairman committee emphasized that railway may not be deviated from his responsibility as reaching the gas cylinder in the train is severe negligence. He further suggested that railway should take precautionary measure so that such incident may not happen in future.
The minister for railway said that all aspects would be reviewed of train fire incident.
Talking to media persons at Parliament House after giving detailed briefing to the National Assembly Standing Committee on Railway, Rashid said the inquiry report of the incident would be received by the next week.
He informed that 11 dead bodies are in custody of Pakistan Railway till now, out of which deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of eight bodies would be completed soon.
To a query, he said that it was a long process, adding all aspects had been reviewed in the committee.
To another question, he rejected the baseless news report that Railway Police department was being demolished, saying that the institution is planning to induct around 500 more personnel of Railway Police.
Shaikh Rashid while commenting on the current political issues stated that leadership of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is making efforts to get relief for former president Asif Ali Zardari. He asked Maulana Fazlur Rehman to refrain from blocking the rods as it is not suitable for a religious party.
Replying to another question, the minister said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has strongly raised the Kashmir issue at international level. He said that Imran Khan would give a strong reply to the letter of Hurriyet leader Ali Geelani.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019