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Wednesday, November 13, 2024  
10 Jumada Al-Awwal 1446  

Social media users are mad at Punjab CM Buzdar's "PR" visit to Murree

The video of Punjab Chief Minister viewing the aftermath of the snowfall in Murree from a plane on Sunday has caused...
Chief Minister Usman Buzdar visited calamity hit Murree on Sunday. Screengrab
Chief Minister Usman Buzdar visited calamity hit Murree on Sunday. Screengrab

The video of Punjab Chief Minister viewing the aftermath of the snowfall in Murree from a plane on Sunday has caused more outrage than perhaps the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf intended.

Usman Buzdar was seen in the video surveying the area covered in snowfall a day after 22 people were reported dead after being stranded in their cars due to the poor weather conditions.

Perhaps the PTI wanted to show that it's top man in Punjab was doing his job at a time when the anger on social media over the handling of the calamity hit area was visible.

But as a tweet from PPP's Raza Dharejo asked what was the point of this visit? He wrote: "This helicopter is bought with the money of people, then why not used this helicopter to save the lives of the people?"

There was a lot of sentiment around Buzdar's visit being purely optic as he showed up after media aired images of the calamity hit areas.

The tweet by Abdul Samad Yaqoob summarizes a lot of the sentiment found on Twitter.

Undoubtedly, the administration was unprepared for the massive influx of tourists who showed up in Murree with their children to experience snowfall. However, their attempts to manage the area led by CM Buzdar, don't seem to be assuaging peoples' concerns.

A tweet showing Buzdar in Murree and holding a high level meeting doesn't seem to have had an impact people wanted.

One user suggested Buzdar had reached Murree on a cycle. Another user expressed sentiments frequently found on social media: that when help and/or disaster management was needed, the army was the only institute around.

"We'll soon go back to indifference after this high level inquiry," he tweeted in Urdu.

Another called Buzdar's visit to Murree "ser aur tafree" -- pleasurable travel.

The government is at least trying to show they want to get to the bottom of what happened.

This can be evidenced, for example, by focal person to CM Punjab on media, Asher Mashwani's tweet on Sunday discussing the inquiry reports they've commissioned to get to the bottom of things. But the response to that has so far been met with skepticism.

One user laid it out straight in their response to the inquiry report by asking the following be addressed: 1. Why cars were not stopped at entry points 2. Coordination with hotels before 3. Why were people not moved out of cars and provided accommodation

Another said "committee means nothing will happen".

Journalist Fahad Desmukh asked for an update on the findings of previous inquiry reports commissioned in the past.

One user said Pakistani public had a memory of a goldfish and will forget until the next tragedy occurs.

Zeenat Talpur wrote another common sentiment visible on social media as early as Monday morning: "Sir please, I don’t want to debate on this anymore. There have been countless inquiries before this and nothing has happened. So this is simply bullshit. And just a tactic to shut us up."

Journalist Khurram Husain wrote: After the tragedy comes the farce.

The anger is directed at the slow pace of the government's response. And when it does try to spread awareness by tweeting, for example on Sunday, information on Balakot, Naran, Kaghan and Shogran being shut due to extreme weather conditions, social media users don't think it's adequate.

The government, and its supporters, has blamed the opposition for using this tragedy to score points and that may be true but this opposition won't be the first one to do it.

Former Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif has been critical of the administration's response to Murree.

Any many people in Punjab are recalling Sharif's hands-on approach to crisis management at this particular point.

However, there's also a lot of pushback to opposition's "point scoring" with many users saying they hadn't forgotten the Model Town massacre or suggesting the Sharif clan show up in Murree to do some work.

Will the PTI government double down on its efforts in damage control or will it succeed in using this moment to reflect on where it went wrong and make attempts to rectify?

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climate change

Usman Buzdar

Murree

Govt

snowfall