Barrister Usman Ali, Ph.D.
There are days when I feel like giving up writing about Pakistan’s politics and the state of our country. How many times can one ask the same questions when dialogue has given way to hostility, disagreement to enmity, and reasoned debate to blind political loyalty? Powerful interests continue to tighten their grip on decisions and resources, while ordinary people argue over whose leader is greater and whose party is better. We are so consumed by our divisions that we rarely ask whether our children are safe at school, workers are protected in factories, or families can trust the roofs over their heads.
Then a tragedy strikes so devastating that silence feels like a moral failure. Writing becomes a duty.
On October 15, 2026, the roof of a private school collapsed in Dair Colony, Peshawar. According to early reports, 34 children and a female teacher were killed, while more than 50 children were injured, some critically. Imagine the parents who prepared breakfast, packed schoolbags and sent their children off that morning, expecting to welcome them home in the afternoon. Instead, classrooms meant for learning became scenes of unimaginable loss. Some families mourn children who will never return; others wait anxiously beside hospital beds, praying for those still fighting to survive.
These children had done nothing more than go to school. Is it too much to expect a state to ensure that a classroom roof will not collapse on its pupils?
And this tragedy is not an isolated one. In Lahore’s Kahna area, a tuition-centre roof collapse claimed 14 children’s lives. At a school in Baghbanpura, another child was killed and four were injured. These incidents should have prompted urgent questions about building safety wherever children gather. Instead, yet another community is mourning. What does it say about our priorities when warnings paid for in young lives fail to produce lasting safeguards?
The same questions extend beyond schools. Fires at Karachi’s Gul Plaza, Regent Plaza and Ali Enterprises factory; the LDA Plaza fire and the Sundar Industrial Estate collapse in Lahore; and tragedies in Karachi’s Mehran Town and Lyari point to a wider pattern of preventable danger and inadequate protection. Each incident has its own circumstances, but all demand scrutiny of the systems intended to keep people safe.
Workers at the Ali Enterprises factory left home to earn a living, not to lose their lives. In Mehran Town, blocked exits and barred windows reportedly made escape from a factory fire desperately difficult. At Sundar Industrial Estate, some workers had reportedly raised concerns about cracks in the building before it collapsed. Too often, the warnings of those most exposed to danger carry the least weight. Their voices are heard only when they can no longer speak.
Unsafe housing tells a similar story. In Karachi’s Lyari neighbourhood, residents remained in a building that had been declared dangerous, without adequate arrangements for somewhere safe to go. What choice does a family living on the margins have: remain beneath a roof that might fall, or take its children onto the street? When the state issues warnings without helping vulnerable residents find workable alternatives, a construction risk becomes a failure of public administration as well.
After each disaster, the familiar ritual begins. Condolences are issued. Ministers visit the scene. News channels broadcast harrowing footage. Compensation is announced, arrests are made, and inquiry committees are formed. For a few days, public grief dominates the headlines. Then another controversy takes over, and the victims fade from view.
The tragedy has not ended. Only our attention has.
Investigations matter, but their value lies in what follows. How many reports are released publicly? How many recommendations are implemented? How many unsafe buildings are repaired or evacuated? When negligence is established, how many responsible individuals face meaningful, lawful consequences? If lessons from one disaster do not help prevent the next, an inquiry becomes little more than a record of loss.
Nor can accountability stop with a property owner or contractor. Who approves building plans and additional floors? Who licenses schools and factories? Who checks construction quality, fire exits and emergency procedures? If safety laws exist, why are they ignored? If regulations leave gaps, why are those gaps allowed to remain? Responsibility must be traced through the entire chain of decisions, with findings established fairly and transparently, not assigned merely to satisfy public anger.
The solutions are neither mysterious nor impossible. Every school, religious seminary, tuition centre, factory and multi-storey building should undergo regular inspections by qualified professionals. Reports should be public and easy to understand. Parents should have a voice in school safety oversight, workers in factory inspections, and residents in decisions about their buildings. People must be able to report hazards without fear of retaliation.
Buildings posing immediate danger must be evacuated promptly, but safety cannot mean abandoning low-income families or disrupting children’s education without alternatives. Authorities should provide practical arrangements for temporary housing and schooling. Where defective construction or negligence is proven, owners and responsible officials alike must be held to account through due process. Major inquiries should carry published deadlines for recommendations, corrective action and progress reports, so the public can see whether anything actually changes.
Ultimately, this is also a question of our collective priorities. We can spend hours defending political leaders, condemning rival parties and mobilizing for partisan causes. Why, then, do we struggle to unite around something more fundamental: the safety of children, the dignity of workers and the right of every citizen to live without avoidable danger? Surely those obligations should matter more than any political allegiance.
No slogan can comfort the family in Peshawar whose child’s schoolbag remains at home, never to be carried again. No press conference can ease the fear of parents waiting outside an intensive-care ward. These families need compassion and financial support, but they also deserve answers, justice and reforms that might spare others the same grief.
Roofs seldom collapse without warning, and deadly fires are not always beyond prevention. Before a building fails, safeguards may have been overlooked; before a fire spreads, escape routes may have been blocked; before lives are lost, responsibilities may already have been neglected.
After every tragedy, we recover bodies from the rubble. What we fail to recover are the lessons buried with them.
The question is no longer when the next roof will fall or the next factory will burn. It is when those entrusted with preventing such disasters will finally be held accountable. When the same failures recur and nothing changes, they cease to be merely isolated accidents. They become an indictment of a system failing in its most basic duty: protecting human life.
