Railway lines in slums
By Majeed Gill
RECENLTY six school-going children aged between 5 and 12 years were crushed under the wheels of a Lahore-bound 15-up express near Dhobi Ghat close to the railway station here. Out of the six deceased five were related and all belonged to daily-wage earning parents. The sixth one living in the same locality of Gharibabad hailed from a Christian family and was being brought up by his grandfather as his father was dead.
There are kachi abadis on both sides of the railway track. They are thickly populated and are without basic amenities of life. During a visit there to meet the affected families, it was a surprise to see that the residents were forced to live in a stinking environment with sewage flowing in an open drain inviting diseases.
On one side of the railway track is Gharibabad while on the other is a kachi abadi by the name of Quaid-i-Azam colony. None of these slums has any playground. In the absence of any open space for children, they usually go to the nearest places along railway tracks, which are open to movement of people. There are no obstructions that may prevent the children crossing the tracks or playing along them.
In order to discourage the free movement of people, especially children, across rail tracks in kachi abadis, it is urgently needed that the Pakistan Railways should make plans to stop such accidents in future. Kachi abadis existed in almost all cities and towns through which rail lines passed. The railways should allocate substantial funds for the safety of dwellers. Fencing the tracks could protect the people. Besides, measures should be taken to check accidents at unmanned railway crossings.
The local public circles expressed anguish over the meagre amount of Rs50,000 for each of the bereaved parents of the six children announced on behalf of the Punjab CM by district nazim Tariq Cheema. The Pakistan Railways kept silent on this issue. It is true that the train driver was not at fault in this accident, but still the railways minister should have announced some sort of financial assistance for the poor affected families.
There was also a feeling among some circles that the grant announced on behalf of the chief minister should be paid expeditiously to parents of the victims.
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THE disputed Gulzar-i-Sadiq Park has recently been handed over to the city tehsil municipal administration (TMA). During the past years, it had been a bone of contention between the cantonment board and the defunct municipal corporation with the result that the people were deprived of the facility. At one stage the then municipal committee, which was later upgraded to the status of a corporation, had planned to convert it into a beautiful modern park. But, later on its administrative control was given to the cantonment board, which took measures to improve it to some extent.
Keeping in view its location near the city, the park was best suited to the populous Walled City. In the absence of such a facility near the city, majority of the people thronged the Garrison Park or went to Farid Park at Seraiki Chowk, which was reserved only for women. Now that the administrative control of Gulzar-i-Sadiq has been entrusted to the TMA, it should be developed into a modern park where recreational facilities, particularly for children, should be provided.
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DPO Arif Nawaz claimed that the local police had busted an inter-provincial criminal gang. At a news briefing here the other day, he said the gang’s ring leader, Muhammad Kashif alias Kashi, and his three accomplices Muhammad Nasir alias Tooti Farooq alias Mouser alias Allama, resident of One-Unit Staff Colony, Bahawalpur and Ahmed of Fateh Khan Bazaar here had been arrested and the police were tracking their six accomplices.
According to city ASP Zulfiqar Ali Mahar, the arrested accused confessed to 15 street crimes in Bahawalpur, four in Lahore’s Yateem Khana and Nawankot areas and one in Karachi near the Quaid-i-Azam’s Mazaar, where one of their companions, Belal, was killed in a dacoity. Several cell phones, jewellery and cash allegedly snatched at gunpoint were recovered from their possession.
The DPO was hopeful that during interrogation they would confess to more cases.
