Transporters to note down passenger details before letting them on board

These records will help the police, hospital and families identify loved ones

HYDERABAD: There are two things that recent accidents on the highway have made abundantly clear: public transport is unsafe and there is a need to maintain the passengers’ records - who they are, where are they going and from where.

Usually in highway accidents, the motorway and local police along with rescue workers and hospitals are the main source of information for the families because public transport providers and government regulators do not maintain passenger records.

Iqbal, 53 and his wife, Musarat, 49, were among the 10 people who died in an accident on Super Highway near Nooriabad on February 22. The van caught fire after the accident due to a leak in two of the four CNG cylinders. Their family did not know that they had died in accident or were even on the bus till four hours after it had happened.

Who is to blame?

“There are only two legal transport stands in Hyderabad, the Badin and Baldia stops, but around half a dozen operate illegally,” said Mir Afzal Khan, the president of the Sindh Bus Owners Association. “Even if the authorised ones collect details of the passengers, it won’t solve the problem.” He added that the authorities had never asked them to maintain any passenger records.

The police and transport authorities accept part of the blame. “After the Malir accident [January 11] the secretary and minister directed transporters to collect details of the passengers and remove CNG cylinders and ensure vehicle fitness,” said Sheraz Shah, an official from the Hyderabad Regional Transport Authority, adding that so far they had not pursued transporters or checked records.

He claimed that from now on they will make sure that a record is being kept even at illegal bus and taxi stands. He said that the transporters will have to collect the passengers’ names, addresses and contact numbers if they do not have a computerised national identity card with them.

SSP Hyderabad Irfan Baloch confirmed that the police have not asked the transporters for such records as yet.

Family ties

Iqbal and Musarat Qureshi’s families were worried when Iqbal didn’t answer their calls. “His cell phone was switched off,” said Sultan Qureshi, a relative of the deceased. “We kept trying for a few hours after the news broke. We kept fearing the worst and hoped that they were not on that van.”

The Qureshi family learnt of the death of their loved ones the hard way. They saw a still image of Talha [Iqbal’s grandson] four hours after the accident. The child survived. He was thrown out of the van as soon as it overturned in a roadside ditch and suffered from minor injuries.

“The day after the accident was very grueling and sad,” said Mairaj, the regional in-charge at Edhi. “Family after family came to our offices looking for their loved ones. Since all the bodies were in Karachi, some relatives became very upset and were abusive towards us.”

According to Mairaj, the phone kept ringing as news of the accident hit the television screens. “A few families even came to the office as soon as they heard about it,” he told The Express Tribune. “It was not possible for us to identify the deceased immediately even though our volunteers had reached the site in less than 30 minutes.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2015.