- More than an inquiry required
“If this were the UK, the Railways Minister would resign himself”. These were the words of Imran Khan a few years back when the PML(N) was in power; Khwaja Saad Rafique was the Railways Minister and a train accident had taken place resulting in a high death toll. Like with most of his older statements, now that he is in power, when it comes to holding himself or his Cabinet to the same standards that he once preached, PM Imran Khan conveniently reneges. The incident in Sukkur on Friday where a train collided with a bus at an unmanned railway crossing, leaving at least 20 dead and dozens more wounded, is the latest in a series of accidents under Sheikh Rashid since he became the Federal Minister for Railways. Rashid, who pays little attention to his portfolio and more towards trading barbs with his political opponents, has naturally fixed the blame for the avoidable accident on the Sindh government for failing to deploy personnel at crossings. According to Sheikh Rashid there are around 3,000 unmanned railway crossings between Karachi and Peshawar; if in fact it is the provincial government’s job to ensure that railway crossings in their respective jurisdictions are manned, then the PTI, which is in power in all provinces but Sindh, should put its house in order first and then deflect blame.
Sukkur is hardly an isolated incident; since Rashid took office in August 2018, according to some estimates, there have been at least 80 train accidents of varying intensity in terms of damage and casualties. Last year, owing to lax security protocols, a train caught fire killing 75 people after a gas cylinder that was smuggled on board by some passengers exploded. Failed signaling mechanisms have resulted in numerous other incidents as well. There are plans now to introduce new high-speed trains on the existing railway network. It would be a catastrophic mistake to introduce more speed on an infrastructure that his hardly manageable as it is. Pakistan Railway has all the problems that other publicly owned enterprises in the country also deal with; they are overstaffed, have loss-making inefficient units rife with financial malfeasance that continues to go unchecked and are being run by incompetent persons at the top and middle. There will be no letup in the frequency of such accidents unless a competent professional who actually wants the job is hired to run it. That person, clearly, is not Sheikh Rasheed.
