The Cost of Unsafe Labor and Negligent Infrastructure in Gilgit-Baltistan
As reported by Pamirtimes on 29 December 2025, the death of Mujeeb ur Rahman, a foreman of the Power Department electrocuted while repairing transmission lines in Passu, cannot be dismissed as a tragic accident. It is a stark indictment of systemic negligence, bureaucratic indifference, and the persistent failure to protect frontline utility workers in Gilgit-Baltistan. His burial in Gulmit, amid widespread public anger, reflected not only collective grief but also mounting outrage against an institution that repeatedly exposes its employees to mortal danger.
This tragedy is not isolated. A near-identical fatality was recently reported from Astore, while earlier deaths have occurred in Danyore and other parts of Gilgit. Together, these incidents reveal a lethal pattern rather than unfortunate coincidence.
Known Risks, Ignored Duties
Residents and workers consistently testify that Power Department personnel are routinely directed to work on live transmission lines without basic safety arrangements. Essential protections—insulated gloves, helmets, safety harnesses, voltage detectors, lockout–tagout systems, and emergency preparedness—are either unavailable or entirely absent. This is not simple oversight; it is reckless endangerment that violates elementary occupational safety principles.
The absence of standard personal protective equipment, enforced safety protocols, proper high-voltage training, and functional emergency response systems has transformed routine maintenance into a deadly gamble where workers risk their lives against institutional neglect.
Negligence Beyond the Workplace
Equally alarming is the department’s casual and often arbitrary approach to laying electricity lines and installing pylons along roads. Poor planning and misalignment have, in several instances, resulted in live high-voltage wires intruding into private properties and residential compounds, exposing entire families to continuous danger.
One such case occurred along Shabakee Mohellah, where live wires from a high-voltage line originating near the Karakoram Highway (KKH) were misdirected along the Shabakee Mohellah Link Road. These wires intruded into a residential compound, repeatedly coming into contact with a decades-old walnut tree—posing a perennial threat to life and property. Despite persistent complaints, the hazard remains unaddressed. This illustrates that negligence is not episodic but embedded in planning, execution, and oversight.
A Pattern of Death, Not Accident
Each fatality follows the same grim script: hazardous assignment, absence of protection, loss of life, public outrage, hollow assurances, and eventual silence—until the next tragedy. Such repetition strips away any claim of accident. These deaths are foreseeable, preventable, and therefore institutional failures.
Administrative Collapse and Accountability Vacuum
The continued non-provision of safety measures reflects failure at every level: budgeting that ignores worker safety, procurement systems that fail to deliver essential gear, supervisory officers who do not enforce compliance, and an administration that fixes responsibility nowhere. The absence of transparent, independent inquiries ensures that negligence faces no consequence and therefore persists.
The Human Cost and the Moral Imperative
Mujeeb ur Rahman was not a statistic. He was a husband, a father, and a provider whose family now faces grief and insecurity. Compensation, while necessary, cannot redeem a life lost to preventable neglect. Compensation without reform merely monetizes death.
Conclusion
This recurring loss of life—of workers and the constant endangerment of civilians—is not destiny. It is institutional neglect made fatal. Unless decisive reforms, transparent accountability, and immediate safety provisioning are enforced, every future death will stand as a collective moral failure—one history will record not with sympathy, but with condemnation.
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