By Shaikh Daniyal
The house located in a quiet street of Kachwana, a village in Kahna Nou, where children’s voices and dreams of the future were echoing a few hours ago became a scene of doomsday in a few moments. The roof consisting of T-iron and girders suddenly collapsed and the innocent students and their young teacher who had come to study tuition were buried under it. Rescue teams took timely action and 19 people, including a 30-year-old female teacher and children were pulled out of the rubble in a very critical condition and shifted to a nearby hospital, but 14 of the injured did not survive. The ages of the deceased were between 5 to 9 years old, while two girls were 11 and 16 years old respectively. These were children who had not yet reached the age of holding a pen firmly in their hands.
This is not just a roof collapse incident but a sign of the collapse of an entire system. The question is not why the roof collapsed, the question is why such a roof was allowed to be built and who gave permission to sit children under it to teach. Under the Punjab Local Government Building Rules and Building Byelaws enforced in Lahore, for educational activities in any residential building, a change in land use, an approved map, engineering clearance of structural design and a fitness certificate are mandatory, while a roof consisting of T-iron and girders cannot be considered safe for the load of many people until it is subjected to a regular structural audit. This tragedy has also raised the question of whether this building was ever subjected to any technical inspection or everything was silently ignored.
After the tragedy, when it came time to determine responsibility, another tragedy came to light. According to sources, the Metropolitan Corporation Lahore and the Lahore Development Authority refused to accept this location as part of their boundaries, while the responsibility for the construction of this place was put on the Defence Housing Authority. The question is that if this area is not clearly included in the jurisdiction of any one institution, then whose responsibility was the approval of the map, supervision of construction, inspection and safety checks and if all these institutions are not responsible, then who is ultimately responsible for the death of 14 children. The law does not allow institutions to open maps and find their boundaries after the loss of human lives.
According to reports, as a preliminary action, the owner of the house and the mason have been taken into custody, however, under criminal law, this incident is not a mere accident but falls under the category of criminal negligence. The Pakistan Penal Code imposes criminal liability for death due to negligence and the Criminal Procedure Code makes magisterial inquiry mandatory for unnatural deaths. In such a situation, the question has become acute whether the liability will be limited to the lower level or will those institutions and officers who either turned a blind eye or did not perform their duty be held accountable.
Today, the doors of many houses in Kahna Nou are closed, many mothers are sitting with their children’s tuition bags pressed to their chests and many fathers are standing in the graveyard asking whether their children would not be alive today if the law had been followed. This tragedy is an open test for the state. If there is no transparent and impartial investigation into this incident, if there is no immediate audit of illegal constructions and if effective legal action is not taken against the responsible institutions, this incident will remain just a news item and tomorrow another roof, in another street, on another class will collapse.
Tragically, even before the dust of the Kahna Nau tragedy has settled, another painful incident has shaken Lahore once again. Despite government restrictions, summer camp classes were going on inside a school in Baghbanpura when a dilapidated roof collapsed. As a result, an eight-year-old child lost his life and around ten were injured. The incident has raised serious questions about the performance, monitoring procedures and enforcement capacity of the School Education Department.
It appears that Lahore’s education system is either suffering from chronic neglect or that innocent students have been left at the mercy of unsafe roofs and decaying structures. On one side are the grieving mothers of Kahna Nou holding their children’s tuition bags, and on the other is yet another mother mourning her eight-year-old son, wondering whether strict compliance with the law could have saved his life.
These incidents cannot be dismissed as coincidences. The collapse of roofs at educational places within days of each other is a clear warning that illegal summer camps, unsafe school buildings and educational activities without fitness certifications have become a deadly norm. If immediate and decisive action is not taken, these tragedies will continue to repeat themselves.
This is not merely an expression of grief; it is a collective question directed at the state and its institutions. If these incidents are once again buried under routine statements, symbolic suspensions and limited arrests, history will not forgive us. Every falling roof will stand as an indictment of a system that failed to protect its most innocent citizens.
