Broken and shattered : Number of young deaths surge as world remembers road victims

Families feel devastated after their sole breadwinners die in road mishaps.

LAHORE: On November 19, World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, Muzzafar Din was not the only one to mourn the death of his loved ones in road accidents.

Thursday night when Muzaffar Din received the news of the death of his son, Shafiqul Rehman and injury to many of his relatives in a road traffic accident that claimed 29 lives so far, he felt shattered and broken.

“Ever since I heard that news, I could not sleep as I am busy either in hospital or offering funeral prayers,” Muzaffar Din told The Express Tribune from a graveyard in Mandoori Village in Lachi tehsil of Kohat district.



He said he had just buried his cousin Naseemul Din, 40. “The victim ran a flour processing unit to earn livelihood. He was a poor man and his family will have to face the hardships of life after his death,” Muzzafar Din said.

“The death of my son in this young age has left me stranded, shaken and traumatised. The day I received the news of his death, I felt like drowning in a deep well of darkness,” he said narrating his ordeal.

“My son was a pious man. He was a staunch follower of the religion. On November 8, he was travelling to participate in Tableeghi Jamaat’s Ijtima (religious congregation) in a bus from Kohat to Rawalpindi. When the bus reached near Dhok Pathan about 20 kilometres before Talagang, it overturned and plunged into a ravine. At least 84 people were travelling in the bus and 24 of them died on the spot. While 29 people have died so far and seven are still admitted to a hospital in precarious condition.” Muzaffar Din said 25 people who lost their lives in the accident all belonged to his village.

“Every other day, we were offering funerals of our loved ones or attending those admitted to the hospitals,” he added. Muzzaffar said it was unfortunate that the government has not announced or provided them any compensation or assistance after such a major tragedy. “So many precious lives have been lost in the accident. Many families have lost their breadwinners. All of them were poor people and their families were in dire need of financial assistance,” he said.



Basharat Ali 50, a Qing Qi rickshaw driver, whose son Waqas Basharat lost his life after being run over by a passenger bus in Shafiqabad on November 5, said his son left him when he badly needed him. “Waqas was my only child. At this old age, I have lost the energy and courage and need someone to become my helping hand but my son has gone.”

He said the suspected driver who killed his son was on bail. He requested the authorities to help him financially to survive and live a decent life. Zohaib Kazmi, whose sister Ghulam Fatima, a professor at Himaiyat-e-Islam Khawateen College, was killed and nephew Zaibul Hassan, a college student critically injured and still admitted in a hospital, also expressed his grief on the tragedy he had to pass through in his life.

“My sister was an intelligent and competent woman. She was a PhD scholar. She was hit by a teenage boy who was busy in racing and drifting in Mustafa Town,” he said. “It is unfortunate that in this country learned people like my sister are killed in such a brutal way and there was no one to stop it,” Kazmi said while lamenting the authorities that failed to keep underage drivers off roads.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 20^th, 2017.