Who will help the Airblue crash victims’ families?

The objective now is to conduct an independent inquiry, under Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s direct supervision.

Why do we forget so fast? Without resolving, or reaching a conclusion, we tend to move on. This is perhaps the most painful part of the Airblue plane crash story. There needs to be an independent investigation.

Imagine if it were your loved ones. Would you be able to move on? Would you like to let those responsible for your post-crash ordeal get away with it without any punishment? Even if you are the forgiving sort, the issue is process related. You would want the process fixed so that disasters were better handled in the future and others would not have to go through the same ordeal.

I had personally been with the victims’ families in Islamabad in the days immediately after the crash and I am an eyewitness to the failures of government institutions.

Pakistan has a poor record in respect of making aircraft accident reports public. In the last 50 years, no reports have been made public. This report should be made public to minimise future crashes and improve disaster management processes. There needs to be accountability in every domain.

Frankly, the way families were treated from the time they landed at Islamabad airport, the way they were blocked from identifying the bodies at PIMS (Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences), the way the bodies once identified were misplaced by the administration, the way the burial was done, the fact that DNA results led to misplacement of body parts — all these need investigation and culprits in each government department need to be held accountable for the agony caused to the families.

It is hard to believe how the flight entered the no-fly zone without being diverted from there. The fact that the interior minister announced the existence of survivors and then denied them later on also needs investigation.

The bottom line is: there are several unanswered questions and as per the conventions of the International Civil Aviation Organisation the families of the crash victims have a right to know. So does the rest of Pakistan, so as to minimise such incidents in the future. Even the compensation amount is being minimised and is not in accordance with the Montreal Convention of 1999 which governs such matters.

The objective now is simply to conduct an independent inquiry, under Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s direct supervision. I have submitted a privilege motion against the defence minister for hiding the facts of the case in parliament. But I don’t expect to see any results from parliament. Nor do I expect results from the executive. Thus I have decided to appeal to the chief justice in terms of either a suo motu or a public interest constitutional petition. The families of both the Airblue and the Jahangir Siddiqui air crash need justice, so that institutional systems in Pakistan improve and such incidences are few and far between.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 17^th, 2010.