Accident, negligence or murder?
The open drains of Chattogram have taken lives before, and this time around, a 12-year old boy fell in a drain on Monday and disappeared. Fire service personnel are conducting an operation to recover the body of the missing boy. The photograph of the mournful father holding the mug-shot of his missing son that appeared on the front page of this daily is a poignant one, indeed. Ironically, the boy fell in the same drain which had devoured 55-year-old Saleh Ahmed, a vegetable trader, on August 25 this year. And only a month later, on September 28, 19-year-old university student Sehrin Mahbub Sadia met with the same fate. Even earlier, in the month of June, a CNG-run autorickshaw fell in one such drain and the driver died along with a passenger.
The open drains have turned into veritable death traps for the citizens of the port city, and these unfortunate deaths, occurring in quick succession, seem to have failed to stir the conscience of the people responsible for keeping the drains covered anticipating such accidents. These wide and deep drains have been constructed very close to the roads and during heavy rains it becomes difficult to guess where the drains are located. Rescue operations by the fire service department personnel cannot run smoothly because of the filth and sludge in the drain-water.
The main mantra of any construction project is "safety first", but we hardly notice people responsible for the maintenance of safety implementing the slogan as diligently as they should. Following the accidents involving the open drains, citizens have demanded that these be covered with durable slabs. But, no perceptible action has been taken so far to prevent such tragedies. One town planner, almost echoing our concern, told the correspondent of this daily that drains in the city have been left open and accidents are happening because of the sheer negligence of the authorities. He further said that the Chattogram City Corporation cannot avoid responsibility for these accidents. We cannot but agree with him that you need not be an engineer to sense it. Just common sense is enough to understand that leaving drains open may cause accidents.
We notice the same old tendency of passing the buck here as well. When contacted, the CCC mayor, instead of taking responsibility, said the drain in question could not be covered up as the Chittagong Development Authority (CDA) has been working on it as part of a mega project to address waterlogging. The mayor has no idea when CDA would hand over the drain to them.
The whole episode smacks of negligence and apathy towards human suffering and human life. It is criminal in nature and needs to be investigated by the government so that no more lives are lost in avoidable accidents.
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