Monday, March 24, 2014 – IN a tragic incident, more than forty people were killed when two passenger buses carrying smuggled petrol and diesel on their rooftops caught fire after a fierce collision with a truck on RCD highway near Hub on Saturday. The collision and resulting fire was so fierce that a bus and truck were completely burnt and the passengers did not get a chance to escape and were burnt alive before rescuers arrived.The incident is not first of its kind as daily hundreds of people are killed in accidents or overrun by speeding vehicles across the country. As for smuggling of Iranian oil in drums on roofs of buses, responsibility rests with the law enforcement agencies and the traffic police to stop this practice. In fact parallel system has emerged in Balochistan and smuggled oil is being stored and distributed in every town of remote areas of the province. The smuggled oil is so cheap that people prefer to purchase it and the buses also carry it in drums for sale in other cities or for their own use to save money. No one realizes at what cost this practice is going on. On the one hand it denies national exchequer from much needed revenue while on the other it puts the lives of passengers at great risk. But who cares for poor masses and interest of the country because every one at the porous borders with Iran and Afghanistan is busy in minting money. Smuggling is rampant with the connivance of the officials of concerned agencies but unfortunately no attention is being paid to it. People are openly blaming the seniors that they too get their share and posting at the borders is much sought after given to those who oblige the seniors by paying huge amounts. Turning to the inferno at the RCD highway, it is a daily occurrence as we read and hear about deaths of large number of people going for marriage parties or for attending the Urs of Saints in Sindh and Punjab. The question is why the traffic police cannot control the illiterate, untrained racing drivers and stop this blood letting on the roads. We may say that image of a government depends on day-to-day happenings and not just by carrying out Mega projects.
