Senate body for early completion of probe

ISLAMABAD
By Bakhtawar Mian

ISLAMABAD, Dec 11: A senate body on Tuesday demanded early completion of the inquiry into the collapse of Shershah Bridge and recommended action against those found responsible.

The 1.2-km-long Shershah Bridge, a part of the Karachi Northern Bypass, had collapsed on Sept 1, 2007 killing several people and causing widespread damage.

The bridge was constructed by the National Logistic Cell about two years back. Later on, a fault occurred in its design for which foreign experts were hired. The bridge was redesigned and formally inaugurated by President Pervez Musharraf on Aug 6, 2007. It collapsed just three weeks after the inauguration.

The senate’s standing committee on communications, which met at the Parliament House on Tuesday, expressed its serious concern over the tragic incident and called for completion of the probe at the earliest to ascertain the cause of the collapse.

“The incident has brought a big disrepute to the whole country,” the senators noted, and stressed that appropriate punitive action be taken against those found responsible. The committee also emphasised on making sure that such incidents didn’t occur in future.

The inquiry had been instituted after President Pervez Musharraf and the then prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, took serious notice of the collapse and the serious flaws involved. They had called for “a quick inquiry” into the whole affair.

The National Disaster Management Authority was deputed to undertake the investigations and submit a report at the earliest. However, the investigations stood incomplete even after passage of more than three months now.

It is learnt that the NDMA, headed by a retired army general, has been delaying the job in its effort to save the NLC image. Former minister for communications Shamim Siddiqui had recently stated that the NLC would be blacklisted (if found responsible for the collapse). However, he had allegedly been pressured by some military officials and restrained from repeating such statements. The NDMA chief has also reportedly restrained the National Highways Authority (NHA) from conducting its own inquiry into the incident.

The senate committee, in its latest meeting, observed that national highways played a significant role in the overall development of the country and improvement in the quality of citizens’ life. Considered as such, there must be a sound and dependable all-weather network of roads and highways, they noted. Only this way the fruits of development could be trickled down to the common man, the meeting observed.

Those who attended the meeting included Senators Mir Muhammad Naseer Mengal, Naeem Hussain Chattha, Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi, Nawab Muhammad Ayaz Khan Jogazai, Liaquat Ali Bangulzai and Muhammad Ismael Buledi.