Safety, security of air, rail, road passengers: Zafar Masud plans to establish foundation

LAHORE: One of the two survivors of PK-8303 PIA plane crash, Zafar Masud, who is the President of the Bank of Punjab, plans to establish a foundation to work for safety and security of air, road and railway passengers in Pakistan and beyond.

In conversation with former CNN correspondent Saima Mohsin in a session “The Survivor” on the concluding day of Lahore Literary Festival (LLF-2021) on Sunday, he went on to say that the Zafar Masud Foundation would work to create an awareness among passengers about their rights and to lobby with the government to make sure that regulations were stringent enough to ensure safety and protection of passengers.

To a question by Saima Mohsin, Zafar said that after this horrible accident, nobody did something substantial to make sure that these things were not repeated again, not from regulations point or from the point of creating awareness among the passengers. “Because when passengers are aware of it, they demand these things,” he added.

Zafar Masud also talked about the insensitivity of journalists vis-à-vis coverage of the plane crash victims and survivors and termed the same harassment in his case, saying he was in the ICU when a journalist barged in to talk to him about the accident.

He stressed that ethics and sensitivity must be kept in mind while making reports for this kind of accidents.

He also narrated his account of the plane crash, saying 30 seconds before the plane was about to land there was a kind of jerk and he was seated in a position where cockpit door was in front of him and saw the plane nosediving.

And before I fainted, “I realized that this is now inevitable, the plane is crashing and survival seems a remote possibility,” he recalled. He also talked about the victims of the plane crash, saying the trauma of the departure of his fellow passengers would always remain with him and he would continue to pray for them.

About post plane crash experiences, Zafar said that when he first came out of his treatment after being bedridden for a couple of months, he took a difficult decision and decided to go to the place of the accident and meet people who were involved in his rescue and thank and appreciate their efforts.