Battagram rescue

On Tuesday, all eyes were on Allai Tehsil in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Battagram district as news agencies, papers and channels both local and international relayed images of a heart-stopping rescue mission. The operation: how to get eight individuals off a dangling cable car or chairlift in the middle of underdeveloped northern Pakistan. Making things far more complicated and heart-wrenching: seven of the trapped people were children. Initial news broke out on Tuesday morning that at around 7:30am or so, a chairlift/cable car carrying eight people – including seven children – got stuck at a height of about 900 feet midway due to breakage in one of its cables. The children, aged between 10-16, were using the chairlift to get to the Batangi Government High School when the cable broke. According to locals, the usual journey to school in such a situation would take about two hours because of the mountainous terrain while it takes just four minutes or so in the chairlift. Rescue operations started as news came in of the sheer horror of the situation, with Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar Kakar closely monitoring the incident and directing the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) and other district authorities to ensure safe rescue and evacuation. After nearly 15 hours of effort, the Special Service Group (SSG) commandos of the Pakistan Army and zipline experts successfully rescued all eight people.

Now that – by virtue of a miracle and some deft ziplining by locals – the stranded passengers are safe and sound and back home where they belong, it is time for some serious introspection. It should not require an editorial to drive home the point that no child – not even one – should have to put their life in this much danger just to get to school. The disparity between the rich and poor is something we take as a given here, but the disparity between the sheer extent of what underdeveloped looks like and what developed areas are is enough to shake the best from slumber. Unfortunately, the state of Pakistan has chosen to continue to sleep on these matters. While PM Kakar has “directed the authorities to conduct safety inspections of all such private chairlifts and ensure that they are safe to operate and use”, and an inspection and safety audit of all cable cars installed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has finally been ordered by the provincial government, why is all this happening now? We could have easily lost all eight people stuck on the chairlift. Why were these people even on a chairlift? When will people living on the peripheries of our mainstream and centre be taken as humans worthy of protection and safety?

We take it for granted that children should go to school because education is a fundamental right but have we ever given a thought to how children of underdeveloped areas take huge risks to get this fundamental right? The state should focus on these areas so that every child gets equal opportunity when it comes to good education that doesn’t come at the cost of their lives. Another aspect of the Battagram incident is the silly debate online about who takes the credit for this rescue operation – the locals or the military personnel. In a saner space, this wouldn’t even have been a debate. In a saner space, the nation would thank both the military personnel and the locals who helped rescue the stranded children. What can help the situation is to make sure that every single person who was part of the rescue operation is named, appreciated, and given the due medals of bravery they all so richly deserve.