Tezgam tragedy.

THE Tezgam inferno near Liaquatpur in southern Punjab is a horrible reminder of the dangerous times we continue to live in, especially in a land exposed to perils that should have been eliminated long ago.

More than 70 lives have been lost in the fire that broke out early Thursday morning in the train as it journeyed upcountry from Karachi.

The railways minister added insult to injury when he blamed passengers for using a gas cylinder which caused the fire. Surely, if he was able to so quickly solve this mystery, he could have gone on to specify which passenger was responsible. Or did he mean that all of them were equally to blame? The real question is: who allowed those gas cylinders into the train?

Regrettably, accidents involving Pakistan Railways are frequent, and there have been a series of them during the year-old tenure of Minister Sheikh Rashid. A dozen of them have been categorised as 'major'.

Incidents of fire breaking out on trains in the country are also quite common.

Railways officials reported 12 fires over one year to the National Assembly during a briefing in July. In four of them, the fire had erupted in the dining cars that accompany the passenger bogies. There were at least eight incidents of fire elsewhere on trains.

Yet it took a fatal blaze of this magnitude for Sheikh Rashid to come up with the assurance that henceforth, the ban on carrying items such as filled gas cylinders on trains would be strictly enforced.

Many of those killed were said to be going to Raiwind for the tableeghi congregation...