As highway accidents increase, travellers ask: How many more deaths?

As mourners slowly assemble at busy Munawarabad Chowk to pay adieu to one of the cherished young sons of the locality –  Waseem Azad – killed in an accident on the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway on Saturday, almost everyone has a question on their lips: “How many more journeys will be ended on the highway like this?”

While Azad lost his life as a shooting stone hit his carnear Panthiyal, his cousin Manzoor Azad had a miraculous escape. With bandagewound around his head, Manzoor is in shock, unable to speak while beingconsoled by mourners.

   

The first among the people to reach the accident site thattook Waseem’s life was Zahoor Ahmad, a sarpanch living near Panthiyal. Ahmadsays almost every week he carries dead on his shoulders, the ones who losetheir lives in the accidents, particularly the vehicles that crumble under theshooting stones along the highway.

“Every week from Panthiyal to Digdol which is some sixkilometers stretch, there are shooting stones under which vehicles getcrumbled. The shooting stones and landslides occur at many places along thestretch particularly along Panthiyal, Digdol, Lower Digdol, Anokhi Fall andMaroog,” said Ahmad.

He squarely blames the ongoing rock cutting and drillingwork carried out in the belt along the highway. “They (executing company) arenot exactly carrying out the work by taking into account the geological andtopographical considerations. Engineering guidelines are not followed,” saidAhmad.

This newspaper tried to get the version of the companyinvolved in the construction work of the stretch, however the officials did notrespond.

Locals involved in the rescue operations and who are thefirst to inform the authorities on the accidents, also rue about theunavailability of ambulances and trauma hospital near Panthiyal. “The hospitalat Ramban is 18 kilometers from Panthiyal and Banihal hospital is 16kilometers,” they said.

Officials said construction carried out in “young mountainsystem” is making the region vulnerable. “It is a stretch of 36 kilometers fromRamban upto Gangroori where maximum landslides and shooting stones occur,” saidan official.

SSP Traffic Srinagar-Jammu highway, Jatinder Singh Johar,explained the reasons leading to deaths along the highway. “There is density ofsome six to seven thousand vehicles that move to and fro within 12 hours alongthe highway. It is putting lot of pressure on the mountain range that is young,making it fragile,” he said.

Besides, he also said majority of the times commuters ignoretheir warnings that leads to the loss of lives. “There is also a freak accidentsometimes. However, we have seen that people are impatient maximum of the timesand proceed on the highway despite warnings. They simply speed their vehiclesaway as the rush thickens every passing hour,” he said, adding this year fewerdeaths occurred along the highway compared to previous years.

Officials said due to road manoeuvring going on in the belt,the mountains have been turned “powdery” leading to “silicon slip” duringrains.

Back at Munawarabad, as sun makes its way through black clouds,news reaches that another shooting stone has trampled the life of a trucker onthe highway.

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