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| Kandni mishap occured due to absence of crash barriers | | | SHARIK NABI
EARLY TIMES REPORT
DODA, July 25: The crash barriers were missing on the road stretch from where a minibus Friday fell into Chenab river at Fagumarh near Kandni in Kishtwar, resulting in the death of 23 persons. Made of hard iron sheets, crash barriers have been erected along the Jammu-Srinagar and Batote-Kishtwar roads. Whenever some vehicles have skidded off the roads, these barriers have prevented them from falling into the deep ravines or rivers. Had these barriers been erected on the Kandni road too, the 23 precious lives which were lost Friday could have been saved, feel locals.
Their erection was to be done by Beacon, but it got delayed due to "unknown" reasons.
Official sources said traffic police had asked Beacon several times to erect crash barriers on the Kandni road too, but the needful was not done.
Locals said government had not taken any preventive measure to stop the recurrence of such incidents except for challaning the vehicles which indulged in violation of traffic norms. No doubt, rash driving and overloading were the main reasons behind road accidents, but vehicles could be stopped from falling into ravines by erecting crash barriers along the roads in accident prone areas, they added. 54 such vulnerable spots are identified on the Batote-Kishtwar road, but crash barriers have been erected only on 15-20 per cent of them. Mohamed Ramzan, a local, said non-availability of requisite number of passenger vehicles in the area was the main reason behind overloading.
He urged the government to make available the required number of passenger vehicles to avoid the menace of overloading. Sources said against the shortage of 36 passenger vehicles, government had provided 37 new SRTC buses to Doda district some time back. The problem, however, remained as it was because 25 old SRTC buses were later withdrawn by the government from the district.
Meanwhile, locals and Navy divers, who were engaged by the Kishtwar district administration Saturday, could not find any clue to either the minibus or the 23 people who had drowned in the river waters. The search operation was called off in the evening and would continue for the third consecutive day tomorrow, additional SP Kulbir Singh said. He said 11 Navy divers had been engaged to find out the minibus and the 23 bodies sources added.
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