Every eye is wet in Kashmir and tears are rolling down every cheek. Everyone in Kashmir is sad today. A tragedy of unimaginable proportions struck Kashmir as a boat carrying people beyond its capacity capsized in the swelling waters of Jhelum near Batwara in Srinagar. It is believed that about nineteen to twenty people were on that boat and a majority of those aboard were school children. While a few people have been rescued as per latest reports a large number of those aboard are feared dead.
It is a tragedy if minor school children have to be aboard such a dangerous boat journey to reach school. Why was not a bridge built at this place which serves as an important point between people of these two areas across two banks of Jhelum River? And most importantly why did the school authorities not declare a holiday for students of this area? Why did the authorities allow this boat service to run when the waters of Jhelum was about to touch danger level? Was no one from the establishment monitoring this?
These are serious questions and they demand serious and urgent answers. The least the government can do is that someone has to be held responsible for these deaths. We demand a high-level judicial inquiry in this regard. No stone should be left untouched to bring the culprits to justice. Culprits here are those officials who did not monitor the boat traffic amidst such dangerous levels of waters, that school which did not declare holidays for minor children residing across the other banks of river.
The government must act in professional manner and immediately declare monetary compensation to the next of kin of those killed and bear expenses of medical treatment of those who survived. This tragedy could have been so easily averted by a single notification that due to rise in the water levels of Jhelum all people are hereby ordered to refrain from traveling in a boat in Jhelum till further orders. This order should then have been implemented by the Jammu and Kashmir police. This boat should have been moored to the bank with a lock or stamped road of Jammu and Kashmir police.
No one did their official duties properly and the results are before our eyes. May the wounds this tragedy gave us heal soon.
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