Only weeks after the horrific tragedy in Murree where 23, including women and children, died stranded in their cars stuck in a snow blizzard, another similar incident was about to transpire in KP’s Dir, but luckily and thankfully a crisis was averted. With over 250 vehicles, occupied mostly by tourists, stuck on the Rawalpindi-Chitral highway overnight in the extreme cold with limited food supplies and the dangerous option of using their car heaters to stay warm, it was extremely likely that a number of people could have died. That the Pakistan Army and the Frontier Corps had to be called in yet again to remove the snow and clear the road so that the traffic could move shows that the civilian administration and apparatus remains and inept and incapable of addressing such natural calamities effectively. What is worse, the mistakes made in the Murree incident where weather forecasts were ignored and the flow of traffic was left interrupted, have been repeated. This is understandable and to be expected because the probe into the Murree incident was carried out in the typical ‘find the fall guy’ fashion, resulting in the committee assigned with the task putting the entire blame on the bureaucracy. Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar later asserted that the complete chain of command of Rawalpindi division failed to perform its duties and was unable to identify the looming risk and ordered the suspension of 15 officials. This buck passing has to stop at some point if gross incompetence is to be addressed and those at the highest levels of government are held responsible and made to answer for their shortcomings and bad governance.
Prime Minster Imran Khan is a strong proponent of promoting Pakistan’s tourism industry to boost the economy and create jobs in the country. While thecovid-19 pandemic may have somewhat decelerated that plan, the PTI has not done itself any favors either by failing to address the key administrative and infrastructure problems such as the ones made apparent by the back-to-back incidents in Dir and Murree. Mr Khan will find it hard to attract more tourists to key destinations in Pakistan, especially foreigners, if their safety is not assured.
