The fires are out at the Marriott, finally; there are brave declarations of building a better hotel on the same spot and promises that not one employee among those who survived the carnage will lose his or her job.
The questions to ask are: will a forensic and detailed examination of the hotel be carried out before it is pulled down inside of a few days? Will someone determine if the sprinkler systems that should be installed in every room and in every public area of the hotel were in working order? Did they work at all when the fires broke out?
Will some authority check if emergency exits to evacuate hotel guests were adequate? And if so, how many guests were safely evacuated? Indeed, will stock be taken of fire-extinguishing equipment inside the hotel, whether it was used or not, and when last the hotel carried out a fire drill?
The Islamic Republics security czar, Rehman Malik, has told us that the destruction was caused by more than a ton of a cocktail of RDX and TNT explosives, aluminium powder, and, as he put it, 'artallery' (artillery) shells, carried aboard a dumper truck.
By way of explaining the presence of the 12-ton truck in what can only be described as the younger sibling of Baghdads Green Zone, Rehman Malik tells us that dump trucks are allowed into Islamabad at night. But was it night-time that this particular dumper careened its way to the Marriott Hotel?
No sirs, it was barely night; it was just after iftar, and if I have my facts right no big truck is allowed into most cities before 10 pm. So, unless Islamabad the Beautiful has its own peculiar rules that allow these behemoths entry any time after 7 pm, Malik is dead wrong.
Add to that the fact that exactly at the time that the truck blew up taking countless lives just wait for the real numbers to get out every VVIP in Islamabad the Beautiful was tucking into a feast at the PMs House barely a kilometre away. This was a massive security and intelligence failure, pure and simple, and heads must roll if their owners will not do the right thing and resign. Those who rate the ISI highly please note yet another failure of this mother of all agencies.
I watched every bit of the unfolding horror on TV; I watched first one room on the fourth floor catch fire; 20 minutes later another; an hour later 10 or 12; two or so hours after that a whole floor until some three hours later more than half the hotel was in flames.
I saw a man and a woman wave to the people below to attract their attention; I saw a man hold a baby up and point to it, begging for it to be saved. I thought about those guests who were staying in rooms that looked over the swimming pool at the back of the hotel and wondered what was going on there. On the morning after the event we read that the poor Czech ambassador who was living in the hotel and was killed in the fire called his embassy to say that he was trapped.
Not one fire truck of the two or three that the Capital Development Authority proudly acquired some time ago and showed off to the public appeared for at least two hours, the one that finally came poured a half-hearted stream of water into a room on the second floor. Not one guest was seen being rescued by firemen there was only the customary chaos and confusion and shemozzle that attends every single crisis-like situation in the fatherland.
Will someone carry out an immediate enquiry into the reasons for the very late arrival of the Islamabad fire brigade at the hotel, and the completely inadequate fire-fighting/rescue millions of viewers witnessed on their TV screens? The CDA must be held to account and charges of criminal neglect placed at the door of those responsible. Indeed, let the ministry concerned, none other than Rehman Maliks, face the music too. It should become clear to the babus that even goldmines can explode in your face.
Also, it must be drilled into their greedy little heads that merely tarting up Islamabad the Beautiful for the rich by building great big avenues and naming them after inconsequential bureaucrats is not enough. That very high up in the duties of a civic body is the safety of the people who live in a city.
It is not as if the CDA is the only culprit. All of the fancy National Disaster Management Authorities and National Disaster Management Commissions were conspicuous by their absence. Only the common, poor people who attend to the needs of and wait upon those that frolic in our star-rated hostelries drivers, waiters, passers-by could be seen helping where they could.
The only well-organised rescue team visible the next day was from the Aga Khan Disaster and Crisis Management. The brave and efficient men and women of this organisation were dressed as rescue teams should be dressed in uniforms and hard hats; and equipped as rescue teams should be equipped with sound-detecting equipment and all.
As usual, the Edhi ambulances were the first on the scene, followed by others, giving one new respect for that wonderful human being, Maulana Abdul Sattar Edhi may his tribe increase who has so efficiently put such a great organisation together. In a recent article, I had suggested that sports in the country be handed over to Imran Khan. Let me in this one suggest that all the disaster management activities be handed over to Maulana Edhi.
Before I end, let me go back to fire-fighting. Not one of Pakistans cities has even a tenth of what is considered adequate fire-fighting and rescue equipment, or trained personnel for this hugely critical task. One F-16 costs something like $12m; initial research tells me a state-of-the-art, fully-equipped ladder fire truck costs approximately $1m. Could we please forego four F-16s and buy 48 fire trucks please? There are cheaper used/refurbished alternatives available; could we buy 100 of these fire-trucks please?
I, for one, would have no objections if the local agents of the F-16s are the local agents of the fire trucks too, so that the kickbacks stay where they should. It will make everything more palatable too.
In view of all of the foregoing, the Government of Pakistan ought to be hugely ashamed of itself.
I read both and try to draw my own conclusions...
Well nothing is wrong with such kind of people having more benefits by dancing to outsiders' tune. You will find such segmengt in every field in their bid to prove themselves as liberal minded the only thing they find to prove is malign your own country even if their points are not valid. It gives them some face uplift as liberals and open minded people among west.
