State of apathy (06012009)

Two small children were killed on Sunday when they fell into an open manhole on the premises of the police headquarters in Garden, police and witnesses said. The loss of any human life is tragic, loss of innocent children's lives is more so, deaths happening, as they did, because of total and criminal negligence of the local authorities and the people of the area is simply criminal.
Deaths occurred on the premises of the police headquarters, the victims were children of a serving police inspector and yet the living conditions were so utterly unsafe that these kids lost their life.
Every tier of the society and the government has failed in the current episode. The local government whose primary function it should have been to ensure public safety and provision of manhole covers failed, there were no covers. Just as the Water and Sewerage Department, KWSB, whose legal duty it is to keep the manholes safe, has been responsible for criminal negligence. But these are the city organisations, overseeing the whole city, what of the local organisation? The Police Department, it is their responsibility to ensure that the civic facilities are available and functioning within their own compounds, that atleast the basic standards of public safety are met. The people residing within the premises, the parents and like, cannot be absolved from the responsibility either, an open manhole is usually right there for everyone to see, to not have done anything to remove this hazard to children's safety speaks volumes of moral decay and apathy of our people at large.
Thus, not just the government and various departments under it, but the whole society has failed and is responsible for these innocent deaths. But no amount of mourning and blame apportionment will bring these kids back, nor will it do anything to alleviate the suffering of the grieved parents.
But we must learn a lesson from this episode. The problems of Pakistan are not because of India or USA, these kids and hundreds like them didn't die of suicide or drone attacks, they died because of our collective negligence.
Every time we give a vehicle to an underage person, every time we break a red light signal, every time we drive past fallen electricity wires or an open manhole, we must remember the children who have died because no one did anything to remove a safety hazard. We must stop and remove the safety hazard or atleast get authorities to wake up and remove the safety hazard. But merely walking off and going about our own merry life is tantamount to criminal negligence implicating all of us in the loss of every innocent life which occurs because we saw and didn't act.