It cannot be denied that in our country including our own state of Goa, everything seems to be in deep slumbers unless some drastic catastrophe knocks. The sad saga of the collapse of the old dilapidated footbridge built during the Portuguese era linking Curchorem and Sanvordem is a case in point.
It was an abandoned bridge but no one bothered to either dismantle it or at least erect some barricade so that it becomes totally inaccessible to the public. The outcome of this act of omission on the part of the government was the loss of lives of some people who suddenly happened to gather on the footbridge to witness the rescue operation to pull out a person who attempted to commit suicide in the Zuari river, when the weak link unable to bear the weight of more than 50 people just collapsed.
Who will own responsibility for this calamity? No one can question the government for the lapse on its part. There is no accountability for any such acts and if push comes to shove there will only be a blame game each one accusing the other; right from the government of the day blaming its predecessor to one department censuring the other for the disaster. Now we hear the government getting proactive in issuing orders to inspect and barricade all old and unused bridges and to submit the compliance report by June end. Let us only hope that some lessons are learnt from this tragedy to be prompt in action without being in ambivalent state.
In this backdrop what was most disgusting, though remained concealed from public ire, was the remark made by our Chief Minister during the rescue operation that the locals were safe and those missing could be migrants. I would like to remind the CM that even the migrants are human beings like any of us and it is outrageous that the head of the state is expressing complacency that the locals are not killed.
It is such attitude of our elected representatives against the non-locals, call them outsiders or migrants, which is creating and sustaining a hate campaign against such people. Let us remember that they too are contributing towards the economy of the state and by far are engaged in some of the most hazardous and low tasks which the locals themselves may not dare to handle. We should first learn to be human by respecting humanity no matter who we are.
