Again those appalling photographs on the front pages of newspapers. For the umpteenth time they published cruel pictures of bodies laid out on the ground in the most grotesque manner in a gesture of some final indignity — and of lamenting relations of persons drowned in droves in some bus or launch disaster. This time the photographs tellingly caught the tragedy of the bus that plunged into the Titas on Friday afternoon by portraying the scenes at the Shahbazpur ghat when after two days of unsparing toil the bulk was raised from water with twentyeight bodies in it

The local bus. bound for Madhavpur from Brahmanbaria. fell into the river Titas with about 50 passengers on its seats. Luckily for as many as 25 others travelling mostly on the roof, they had got down at the ferry-ghat and escaped the sudden call of eternity, and unluckily for the 50 inside the damned contraption some helper, and not the driver, bungled at the steering wheel art the Kb lather that Loaning the ferry went down kite the river

Photographs such as lending poignancy to the issue of the national press on Sunday help the newspapers produce a striking page. They indeed do something more than that, while they certainly produce a sense of shock in many of the newspaper-poring public they also represent a kind of mindlessness which the editors and the government and. in the final analysis, our society in general share among themselves. We have all the rights in the world to ask the government to tell the nation about what was going to be done to the bodies and to the persons they gave shape to and what have they so far had done to prevent people from coming to such an end. But the demand would be as hollow as a Prime Minister's condolence for the very obvious reason that the Press itself do never follow up any of these cases of package unnatural deaths and keep their readers posted with what happens to the dead and to their families. The Press nas also traditionally in mounting any campaign aimed at curbing such meaningless and highly preventable loss of life. They haven't been able so far to pressure the government into feeling any measure of responsibility and guilt in the nagging repetition of such harrowing scenario. Not have they tried to motivate society into giving up practices that invite such tragedies — and t|ie society which includes the operators of the transport vehicles as well as the passengers, has much to mend in the way it takes travelling and in the fatalistic way they give everything up to chance. The Press only publishes photographs and some Information In their barest outline. In the present case not one paper could say how did the Dus get into the river — by falling short of the ferry or by overshooting it. And the nation's leading dally said the bus fell when trying to negotiate a diversion to the Shahbazpur bridge — not a word on the ferry anywhere around is there.

That's the measure of our failure which doesn't In any way lessen the government's share of guilt in the matter. Such disasters at ferry crossings are followed up for a few days by the strict observance of the requirement that all passengers get down before the vehicle boards the vessel — and then full busloads of people drive up to the ferry till another accident kills another dozens of persons. Why is this pattern so unshakably persistent? For one thing, the ferry-vessels are so loaded with vehicles that practically no space is left for bus passengers to stand on it. And then, on reaching the other shore the buses shoot up like arrows waiting not for a minute for any woman or child or old straggler to run up. All these are supremely improvable — if the passengers are conscious and insistent and the bus handlers a little more responsible and the government — In the shape of those in charge of the ^Ktsand ferries— more caring about dbcharglng its Arty.

Only last year at the very same point another bus suded into water drowning 46. The final toll of the present disaster can very likely run up past even that. And will the lessons remain unlearnt even after that?