CJP takes suo motu notice of Gujrat school van tragedy

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The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Wednesday took suo motu notice of the Gujrat school van tragedy in which 16 children and a teacher were killed after their vehicle caught fire.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry will hear the case on June 4. Taking suo motu notice of the incident, the SC sought reports from petroleum, transport, chief secretaries of Punjab, the Punjab IGP and the school administration.

The schoolchildren and their teacher were burnt to death on May 25 when their school van’s gas cylinder exploded in Kot Fateh Din area of Gujrat.

The ill-fated van was carrying students to JinnahPublic School in the Mangowal area of Gujrat from the city’s Kunjah neighbourhood when it caught fire.

The children were aged between five and 15 years.

Sharing the initial inquiry report, Gjurat DCO Asif Lodhi told reporters the other day that the blaze was apparently caused by a spark in electric wires of the vehicle, which within no time spread because there was a petrol bottle in the vehicle.

While some reports say that the fire appeared to have started when the driver of the dual-fuel vehicle switched from compressed natural gas (CNG) to gasoline.

On Monday, former law minister Senator Babar Awan also field an application with the Supreme Court, requesting it to take suo motu notice of the incident and hear the matter on an urgent basis. He also requested the court to direct the police to treat the incident as an act of terrorism and register an FIR under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

A van driver in Islamabad said the tragic incident took place due to negligence of authorities concerned. “Thousands of unfit vehicles are openly plying on various roads of the country, that can repeat history of Gujrat Van tragedy. Instead of announcing, compensation money to victim families after every tragedy, the government should invest in building an effective management system to prevent terrible incidents,” Anwar said.

1 COMMENT

  1. So Justice has just woken up, didnt notice the mega rigged elections by chance!

    While we keep trying to fix the symptoms and not the cause, incidents like building and vehicles getting fire will keep taking place unfortunately. Health and Safety should be paramount in public places and public transport, but it never taken seriously by our nation or the government. We dont drive a policy and make it mandatory to follow it. instead of keep taking the notices just to please people without real results but only for media coverage and then the issues dies down.

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