The structure was supposed to be a place of learning, a small private academy in the crowded outskirts of Lahore where children could supplement their schooling. Instead, it became a tomb. On Tuesday morning, the roof of the Wafaq-ul-Madaris tuition centre caved in, killing 14 children and injuring several others. The building had been operating without proper permits, local officials admitted, its construction reportedly shoddy and unregulated.
This is not a story about a single catastrophic event. It is a story about a system that allows such tragedies to become routine. In Pakistan, where building codes are often ignored and enforcement is lax, similar accidents occur with grim frequency. The dead are almost always the poor, those who cannot afford safer schools or better housing. The children killed on Tuesday were from low-income families, many of them aspiring to break the cycle of poverty through education. They died because the roof above them was not built to last.
What does this say about the society we have created? We talk about the importance of education, about investing in the next generation. Yet here, the buildings where that education takes place are death traps. The cultural shift we need is not just about policy but about accountability. We must ask ourselves: why do we accept this? Why are the lives of these children worth so little that their deaths barely make headlines?
The human cost is immeasurable. Each of the 14 children had a name, a family, a dream. They were not statistics. They were sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. The grief of their families is a private agony, but it should also be a public reckoning. Until we treat every child as irretrievably precious, tragedies like this will continue.
As the rescue workers dig through the rubble, they do not just find bodies. They find backpacks, notebooks, and pencils. They find the detritus of hope. And they find the damning evidence of our collective failure. We owe it to these children to ensure that their deaths are not in vain. That means demanding better regulation, safer buildings, and a culture that values human life above convenience and profit.
For now, the dust has settled in Lahore, but the questions linger. They hang heavy over a society that cannot protect its most vulnerable. The roof did not just collapse on those children. It collapsed on our conscience.
