Jarring apathy

The apathy of everyone involved in the Murree incident is astounding. Our administrators conveniently blamed the victims, while according to some tourists, the hospitality industry seemed more interested in profiteering, forcing thousands of people to spend extended times in their cars, leading to tragic deaths.

While one hopes that the inquiry committee formed by the Punjab government will come up with concrete measures to ensure that such incidents are never repeated, we should ask ourselves: how did we become engulfed in this storm of apathy? To the point that we don’t want to communicate with others on a human level even when we know that our lack of interest and action can kill people.

Mariam Khan

Lahore

*****

It is not the first time it snowed heavily in Murree and people travelled to it to enjoy the weather. It is, however, the first time this turned into a national tragedy. The government credited itself for a boom in tourism, while witnessing thousands of vehicles entering Murree, only to later admit that the local administration was unprepared for crisis-management.

One cannot help but ask: who was supposed to make the necessary arrangements? That a lot of people had gone there was clearly no secret. If the administration was unprepared to host thousands of tourists, why were they allowed to enter the area? Moreover, according to several tourists, prices of hotels went up as people were stranded. To make matters worse, the unapologetic attitude of some of the federal ministers in shrugging off their responsibilities is shocking. The tourism industry must be uplifted so that it can handle such situations in the future.

Sajjad Khattak

Attock