RAILWAYS Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique on Sunday hinted at the possibility of “sabotage” after dozens of people were killed when eight coaches of the Hazara Express train en route from Karachi to Rawalpindi derailed near the Sarhari Railway Station in Nawabshah district. Describing it as a major accident, the Minister told reporters there could be two reasons – either a mechanical fault or a fault was created.
The Minister was understandably not categorical as an inquiry has already been ordered and it would be premature to speculate or try to draw a conclusion. However, some reports quoting official sources in Pakistan Railways termed the derailment of the Havelian-bound train as a result of breaking of the railway line, hot axle, which jammed movement. Khawaja Saad Rafiq, who is, otherwise, a straightforward man, termed the railway track fit having no engineering restrictions (relating to speed limit) and also quoted the driver as saying that at the time of the accident the speed of the train was reasonable i.e. 50 kilometre per hour. However, ground realities suggest the railway line is not dependable and therefore, it needs to be improved/upgraded without wastage of further time. This is also evident from the fact that as rescue operation for Hazara Express was going on, the Karachi-bound Khyber Mail also encountered an accident near Bahawalpur as half of the coaches got separated from the rest of the train. It is also a reality that Khanpur-Kotri section of ML-I is in a dilapidated condition and the PR has plans to rehabilitate the most vulnerable segment at a cost of Rs 30 billion but regrettably neither PTI nor the PDM government provided necessary funding imperilling railway operations and lives of the people. The plan was considered as ‘unnecessary’ in view of planned improvement of the entire ML-I under the second phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) but precious lives could have been saved through proper maintenance and greater vigilance. We also hope that replacement of track of this dilapidated section should receive priority attention under the ML-I project as several fatal and non-fatal accidents happened on this portion during the last few years.
