City mourns plane crash victims

Most of crew members belonged to Lahore

LAHORE: The news of the crash of Pakistan International Airline (PIA) plane spread distress and panic in the provincial metropolis, Lahore, the place of departure of the aero plane for its destination, Karachi.

Reportedly, all the crew members including the captain of the plan belonged to the city besides other passengers.

The relatives and dear ones of the victims rushed to the airport and other means of communication to know the accurate situation about the whereabouts and safety of those boarded the plan.

Allama Iqbal International Airport and district government Lahore authorities issued emergency numbers to help people get confirmed details about the victim.

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The passengers also included media persons, the business community and fashion industry. The country’s two top models Isra Chaudhry and Zara Abid were also travelling in the same plane. One of the victims included a senior journalist working on an executive post on a private local television channel, Ansar Naqvi. As his news of boarding the plane was made public, a sense of grief witnessed not only at the office of the channel but also among journalists community besides his family and relatives.

Another victim included CEO of a government bank, Zaffar Mehmood. His news was also received with much grief among his friends, family and dear ones.

The plane crashed at around 2:00pm. However, it took many hours to rescue operation to clean the site as well as rescue and shift the victims to the hospital. As is the norm in the city, the families of the victims opened their houses for those coming offer their condolences. The relatives and dear ones of those boarding the plan started visiting them at their houses.

People who frequently travelled from Karachi to Lahore rushed to social media to announce their safety to avoid many calls for an inquiry. One such included Sahar Habib Ghazi. She wrote on social media: “I’m getting a lot of check-in messages following the tragic A320 plane crash, so letting everyone know, I am safe and sound and still in Lahore. We are spending Eid here. For work and family, I’ve taken the Lahore to Karachi flight 15 times in the last year, so the crash is not only heart wrenching and tragic, but it is also too close to home.”

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Many lambasted public as well as media for spreading panic news and horrific pictures of the incident. Ghazi also disliked the trend. In continuation of her post, she wrote, “I’ve spent the last hour reminding my journalist colleagues and students to not share lists of passengers, information about the passengers and audio recordings of the crash until it is officially released. Please don’t forward any private information related to the passengers or the crash that you see on social media.”

Nighat Dad of Digital Rights Foundation wrote, “Media feeds on tragedies. And all of you WhatsApp-forward enthusiasts, stop forwarding lists of passengers, unverified news, news links from click baits. Have some empathy for the victims and their loved ones who were supposed to receive this information from official sources, instead of your sensational and insensitive forwards on WhatsApp and social media.”

She also requested the people to stop running pictures of passengers, the crew and list of passengers. She requested people not to forward pilot’s last distress call. “Stop airing inaccurate news verify first. We have lost humans, they were not commodities!”

People on social media also criticised those sharing the photographing and videos of the victims.

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One such user, Amir Shahzad wrote: “control tower conversation is aired - list of passengers published. New channels showing pictures of passengers and crew members. Absolutely pathetic display of journalism and public behaviour. Shameful!”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2020.