Editorial
Plight of accident victims
They need compensation
VICTIMS of road, railway or waterway accidents often go unnoticed either by the government or the private sector. Exceptions occur only when head of the government or a minister announces any compensation for the victims on humanitarian grounds. There is no adequate statutory provision to redress the victims of transport-related accidents
A human story on the suffering of a railway accident victim carried by this paper on Thursday has brought the issue to a sharper focus. The victim, a young vendor cosmetic products named Sharif, who boarded the ill-fated Dhaka-bound train from Bhairab on December 08 last year, is still waiting for compensation, from the Bangladesh Railway (BR). Unfortunately, the boy, who lost both his legs in the accident, had to attend a BR-arranged medical board in Chittagong at his own cost.
Even after six months that the railway crash had taken place and two months since he faced the medical board, he is still in the dark if he would get the paltry sum of Tk 10, 000 as compensation from the BR. Oddly though, the provision of BR's compensation was enacted in 1890 during colonial rule. Obviously, no government that came into office in between had ever thought of replacing the old provision with one that befits the time. Perhaps, the picture is more or less the same in the cases of accidents on the roads or waterways.
In the circumstances, the government needs to take the issue of statutory provision for accident victims related to transport with due seriousness and create fresh provisions as necessary.
Simultaneously, we hope the BR, the government for that matter, would amply compensate Sharif as well as 21 other victims of December 8, 2010's railway mishap on the Bhairab-Dhaka route.
The private sector transport owners should also be pushed along the line.
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