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Friday March 29, 2024

Raiwind Tablighi Ijtima leaders meet Army chief: DG ISPR

"Notables of Raiwind Tablighi Ijtimaa met COAS. Army Chief offered Fateha for departed souls in tragic Tezgam train incident. Also prayed for early recovery of the injured"

By Web Desk
November 11, 2019

ISLAMABAD: Ulema  of the Raiwind Tablighi Ijtimaa on Monday met Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa, according to  Director-General of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor.

The DG-ISPR wrote on Twitter: "Notables of Raiwind Tablighi Ijtimaa met COAS. Army Chief offered Fateha for departed souls in tragic Tezgam train incident. Also prayed for early recovery of the injured".

More than 70 people had been killed and scores of others injured in the  tragic train accident late last month when cooking gas cylinders exploded near Rahim Yar Khan's Liaqatpur area.

The  train was on its way from Karachi to Rawalpindi when the gas cylinder carried by a passenger  exploded, with the fire destroying three carriages, including two economy- and one business-class carriage.

Minister Railways Sheikh Rasheed had said men from the tablighi ijtimaa were travelling in the carriage where the incident occurred. "Bogies were severely damaged by the fire and they have been detached by the rest of the train,” he had said.

“Two cooking stoves blew up. They were cooking, they had [cooking] oil which added fuel to fire," Rasheed had told Geo News. “Most deaths occurred from people jumping off the train.”

Speaking to the media, Rasheed had said Ameer Hussain of tableeghi jamaat had booked the two carriages. “It was our negligence that they were allowed to board with gas cylinders,” he had added.

Footage from the location showed flames pouring out of three carriages as people could be heard crying during the incident. Some of the victims died after leaping from carriages to escape the inferno, authorities said.

The Railway officials said the three carriages were carrying  more than 200 passengers.