YET another launch capsize occurred on Sunday in River Padma and reports said over 48 bodies were recovered till last evening while more than 100 passengers were missing. As we see the death row from launch capsize is only getting longer but there is no functional discipline at Inland Water Transport Authority (IWTA) to run the river transport system in discipline and protect people’s life from drowning.
It appears that the country’s river transport system is highly vulnerable to accident without strict oversight. Meanwhile the death row from fire at garment factories made international headlines during the last few years of this government. Again more than 100 persons so far died over the last one and a half month from petrol bomb throwing in road and highways as the country is reeling under a continued blockade. It appears that we have a government in place to protect the people but people are so protection less and helpless in their homes, in roads and highways and in waterways. Nobody is here to enforce the rule of law and run the governance to save people and at least ensure them a peaceful death. We see the government set up committees after every such accident, but they practically use the committees to cover up the neglect of their officials who have failed earlier to ensure safety of the people.
Some recent launch capsizes incidents were an eye opener to the fact that river are unprotected to people for making voyage in absence of safety requirement. The accident at Payra River at Barguna left scores of people dead. The drowning of Pinak-6 at Mawa ferry ghat was yet another big accident that left over 200 killed in River Meghna when people were crossing it on an overcrowded launch while coming back to the city after Eid-ul-Azha in 2013. Yet another accident took over 200 lives at Chandpur in early 2013 and a launch capsize at Dhaleshwari few years back moreover left over 200 dead.
We wonder what the Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan was doing all these years although he lost three nieces while crossing the River Padma on that occasion. We are appalled to see that the minister is not giving any attention to developing the safety standard of the river going launches by strictly enforcing the standard design, fitness certification of vehicles and their operational supervision, registration and quality of technical manpower.
Reports said he had even restored the service of a supervisor who had issued a temporary fitness certificate to the ill-fated launch, which drowned so many people in the Padma at Mawa. This man had reportedly issued four fitness certificates at four places in a single day which was not humanly possible. But the minister exonerated him for reasons he knew best. The minister is now busier with garment workers leaving the river transport system to regularly facing accidents. He led a procession of garment workers last week to BNP Chairperson’s Gulshan office to evict her from that place. He claimed 23 garment workers were injured in bomb blasts on that occasion raising question why he is doing politics with garment workers while leaving the river transport system facing accidents so regularly.
