A criminal case of “death by negligence” has been opened by the police in the Indian state of Odisha in relation to the train catastrophe that occurred on Friday and resulted in the deaths of 275 people. This comes as opponents have accused the government of trying to transfer blame for the disaster.
The report that was submitted by the police did not mention any particular person as being responsible for the incident; however, it did indicate that “culpability of specific railway employees has not been ascertained, which will be uncovered during the investigation.”
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On Friday evening, preliminary investigations indicated that a signal failure caused the Coromandel Express train to move tracks from the main line onto the loop line. A halted freight train packed with heavy iron ore was on the main line. On the loop, line was where the train switched tracks.
Carriages from the express, carrying more than 1,000 passengers, flopped onto the opposite tracks and derailed the oncoming Howrah superfast express train, resulting in terrible repercussions. The trains were impacted with such force that carriages from the express derailed the oncoming Howrah superfast express train.
A lack of staff has meant that allocated funds for track upgrades have not been spent.
Two days were spent by a rescue operation that included the National Disaster Response Force and hundreds of volunteers removing remains and survivors from the ruins. Since then, family members have had a difficult time locating the bodies of their loved ones, many of whom were severely scarred in the incident. There are still over one hundred bodies that have not been recognized.
More than 300 of the 1,175 injured people were still being treated in hospitals, and some were in critical condition. This gave rise to concerns that the number of fatalities could continue to grow.
On Monday, passenger and freight train service resumed along the route where the crash took place. This route is one of the oldest and busiest lines in India. To prevent people from seeing the damaged carriages that were still lying beside the tracks, netting was thrown over them.
Ashwini Vaishnaw, who is the minister of railways, along with members of the railway board, stated that the investigation was centered on a failure of the track management system. This system automatically coordinates and regulates the signals for oncoming trains, and its purpose is to make sure that these trains are always guided to vacant tracks.
Additionally, the government asked that a criminal inquiry into the crash be opened by the central bureau of Investigation (CBI), a government body, which was a sign that arrests would be possible. On Monday night, a CBI team arrived at the location to investigate potential criminal tampering in connection with the signal failure.
The prime minister, Narendra Modi, visited the scene on Saturday and declared: “Those found guilty will be severely punished.”
The commissioner has also started an investigation into rail safety, and a report is anticipated in two weeks. On Tuesday, the prime minister and other key figures will receive an update on the probe from the chair of the railway board.
Instead of taking responsibility for the accident and looking into systemic safety flaws on the railway network, the Modi government was accused by political opponents of trying to divert attention to a probe into criminal conduct on the part of a single person.
Around 13 million people are transported by India’s railways every single day, making it one of the country’s most important modes of transportation. However, spending on maintenance and basic safety measures and upgrades has been falling, and a lack of staff has meant that allocated funds for track upgrades have not been spent. In recent years, the government has spent billions improving India’s colonial-era railways, including the introduction of superfast trains.
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