LAHORE: Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Pakistan, Senator Sirajul Haq has said that poverty and ignorance were the main cause of the high death toll in the oil tanker tragedy near Ahmed Pur East but timely steps by the administration could have prevented the tragedy.
The JI chief was talking to the media after visiting the scene of tragedy and offering his condolences to the bereaved families on Saturday. He also prayed for the martyrs of the tragedy.
Sirajul Haq said that according to the local people, most of the people died due to the absence of a Burn Unit at Bahawalpur and the injured had to be shifted to Multan and Lahore.
The local people, he said, also claimed that a Burn Unit project offered by the United Nations for Bahawalpur had been shifted to Lahore. He said the local people wanted the Supreme Court to take notice of the tragedy.
The JI chief said that the Mian Brothers had been ruling the Punjab for three decades but the people of the province were still mired in poverty, illiteracy and unemployment and the deprivations of the Southern Punjab had not been addressed.
He said if the masses were without basic facilities of education and health, the rulers were to be blamed. He said that the Southern Punjab looked like a part of Africa. He said had there been a Burn Unit at Bahawalpur, dozens of lives could have been saved.
He said that such accidents occurred in other parts of the world also but the governments there were not negligent and promptly provided relief to the affected which reduced the losses. However, this was not the case here.
JI Parliamentary leader in the Punjab Assembly Dr Syed Waseem Akhtar, JI Information Secretary Amirul Azeem and Maulana Javed Kasuri also accompanied the JI chief.
Sirajul Haq said that the Prime Minister and the Punjab Chief Minister had visited Bahawalpur but they had not announced a Burn Unit even after such a big tragedy which showed that they had hearts of stone.
He said he had come to offer his sympathies to the bereaved families and the people who were suffering from hunger and want. He said wherever he went, he had found abject poverty and backwardness.
He said the masses were complaining of the apathy of the rulers who had huge bank accounts and properties abroad and were enjoying all luxuries of life.
Sirajul Haq appealed to the state and the government to give the right of living to the people of the Southern Punjab as they had equal rights over the country’s resources.
He said that the JI members would raise their voice in the Senate and the National Assembly on the problems facing the Southern Punjab.
The JI lauded the services of the Al-Khidmat Foundation and the JI volunteers and other welfare bodies for providing relief to the affected people. He also appealed to the people to step forward and support this humanitarian cause.
