NATO drivers: En route towards danger

Oil tanker drivers face increasing attacks and scarce protection.

LAHORE:

Shot five times by unidentified terrorists, Waqar Asif can be considered lucky. Lucky, because he lives to tell the tale of when he lay, pretending to be dead, just a few feet away from the burning Nato oil tanker he was driving.

“I recited the Kalma while lying on the ground awaiting death,” he recalled, while recovering at his house in Khushab.

He was attacked last month near Dhok Pathan in Attock while on the way to Afghanistan to transport 60,000 litres of fuel to international coalition forces.

“There were six of them. I think they were Taliban. They spoke Punjabi, and were dressed in green (camouflage) uniforms…their faces were covered. All of them were armed,” Asif added.

According to him, the terrorists came in a brand new 4x4 truck. They were waiting for him just as he slowed his vehicle on an under-construction road.

“I tried to run, but…I was shot. That’s when I fell down (from the driving cabin) and they came towards me. One of them said that I should be shot again, but somehow they thought I was dead and they did not fire (again),” Asif said.

His employer gave him Rs20,000 to cover medical expenses and sent him on leave.  His helper, who was accompanying him on the journey, was also shot. He lost an eye, and is currently under treatment.

Asif insists he will return to his job as soon as he recovers. “I am my family’s only breadwinner. With three sisters and a younger brother to support, I need a job even if it means I have to risk my life again.”

An FIR was registered at the Tallagang police station, but no one visited him to take his testimony.

“They (Nato drivers) are not allowed to stop (anywhere) in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Thus, there is no security if they parked (somewhere), making them ideal targets,” said legal adviser of the All Pakistan Oil Tankers Association Syed Mujahid Hussain, whose job is to provide assistance to drivers between Mianwali and the Torkham border.

Hussain is currently pursuing a case involving 21 tankers owned by Mengal Brothers Ltd, a large private firm supplying fuel to Afghanistan, which were also attacked last month in Tallagang area.

However, he said, authorities have made no progress in tracing the attackers.

Hussain said that it seems as though it was some kind of a ruse to discourage drivers, forcing them to quit the profession.

“The government cannot openly ask Nato to find an alternative route.”

The firm’s manager Liaquat says that problems started emerging just a few months ago. “I think it started (right) after the Raymond Davis episode. The government started to use the Nato supply line as a leverage to pressurise the Americans,” he alleged.

“We have had several meetings with the FC, the army as well as government officials, but no one pays any attention to our pleas,” he said.

“The fuel tankers are not even insured because of their extreme vulnerability to attacks. No (insurance) company wants to take (such a) risk,” he says. However, he said, Nato fuel was insured.

A senior police official claimed that men under his command guard routes, but attacks occur when the tankers stop somewhere. “We do not have enough resources to provide them enough security to park so instead I have made sure that they pass through the province as quick as possible,” said Divisional Police Officer for Nowshera Mohammad Quraish.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2011.