Bandages Only

The school van fire in Murree should have triggered more than an inspection drive in Murree. It should have triggered a national review.

Pakistan’s governance too often works in reverse. A tragedy occurs, officials react, special squads are formed, inspections begin and statements are issued. The response is usually immediate, visible and narrowly focused on the place where the incident happened. Then, as public attention moves on, so does the urgency.

This is the administrative equivalent of placing a bandage over a wound without asking why the injury keeps happening.

The Murree incident is not an isolated warning. Pakistan has seen repeated cases of buses and vans catching fire, sometimes with serious casualties. Yet these incidents rarely produce a sustained nationwide examination of vehicle fitness, fuel systems, electrical wiring, emergency exits, fire extinguishers and enforcement standards.

Even now, the response remains local. Murree traffic police have formed special squads to inspect public-service and school vehicles, particularly for usable fire extinguishers. That is sensible, but why should the same checks not be ordered across Punjab, and indeed across Pakistan?

This is the deeper malaise of governance: policy is too often written after disaster rather than before it. Regulation becomes episodic instead of institutional. Enforcement intensifies after headlines and relaxes once the headlines disappear.

A serious response would require provincial governments to audit school and public-service transport, enforce periodic fitness certification, establish minimum fire-safety standards and penalise operators who put passengers at risk. Schools, transporters and parents also need clear responsibilities.

The lesson from Murree should not be that Murree needs better inspections. It should be that Pakistan needs a system that does not wait for children to be burnt before asking whether the vehicles carrying them are safe.

Governance must become less reactive, less localised and far more preventive.

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