IT has been a month since we lost our son, Mirza Muhammad Wahid Beg, in the PIA’s PK-8303 air crash in Karachi. After the accident, I and other heirs of victims have been running around to get the bodies of their loved ones.

Even today there is a body buried in Rawalpindi that belonged to a family in Karachi. During this one month, barring just a visit by a PIA team with a condolence letter from the PIA managing director, PIA staff has been out of touch with the victims’ families. There has been no communication from PIA about the belongings of the deceased which can tell us where they are and when they will be available to heirs.

There has been no advice or guidance about the Rs5 million per passenger payment. Any responsible airline would give a weekly press release to update families in stress and grief on the progress being made on the above matters.

In any civilised society, such families are asked to stay home, while government agencies and the airline concerned run around completing the formalities for a closure. PIA kept mentioning a helpline that only took your number and said: “We will get back to you”. But nothing of that sort has happened to date.

There was no help desk of the airline at the mortuaries where my family spent nights trying to identify the body of my son. My family members kept exposing themselves in hospitals despite being at risk of getting infected with Covid-19. There existed no help desk at any of the hospitals where the bodies were initially taken.

Accidents do happen and will happen again, but I request the prime minister, the president and the judges to please intervene and ensure that post-disaster a system is there to help and console the suffering families rather than making them go through a more horrible torture.

The crash report was submitted to the National Assembly on June 22, therefore, I will not comment on the number of standard operating procedures that were ignored and were the cause of the accident.

On behalf of my family and other affected families, I request the prime minister, the president and the judges to take note of our misery.

Mirza Naim Beg
Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2020