Derailment of Utkal Express near Khatauli Railway Station in Muzaffaranagar resulted in death of 24 passengers.
Derailment of Utkal Express near Khatauli Railway Station in Muzaffaranagar on Saturday in which 24 passengers were killed and hundreds of others were injured seems to be ‘Railway-made’ tragedy.
Sources at Khatauli Raliway station claimed the track was under repair and despite that the railways authorities did not caution the driver of the Utkal Express to slow down while passing the under repair track. The train was going at a speed of 105 kmph when derailment took place. Utkal Express has no stoppage at Khatauli Railway Station so it was on full throttle not knowing what was waiting ahead.
Significantly, the Railways has already approved a proposal to change about 200 metre track near Khatauli Railways station since it was chipped out and uprooted at many places. However, the work was yet to be executed. So the repair work was on and trains on this track were allowed to pass on slower speed.
The Additional Director General Railways B.K. Muarya told mediapersons that there could be two possibilities. “Either the train driver overlooked the caution board to slow its speed while passing the under repair track or Railway authorities did not put up any caution board at all. In case of the second possibility, the Station Master should have called the driver to warn him about its speed or changed its track. He could have also denied signal to stop the train at the station to avert the derailment,” stated the ADG Railways.
To press his point, Maurya pointed that two trains had passed the track without any problem with a speed of 15 kmph before Utkal Express. “Over-speeding and gross negligence on part of the Khatauli Railway station authorities seems to be prima facie case behind the derailment,” added the ADG Railways.
The ADG Railways did not rule out the possibility of the driver applying emergency breaks reasons for which are under investigation by higher authorities. “Otherwise, the train would not have turned turtle or bogies trampled on one another,” he claimed.
The ADG said that an FIR has been registered and investigations were on to ascertain the real cause of derailment and fixed responsibility on the guilty.
Eye-witnesses also support the ADG Railways theory. “There was a loud deafening sound before the derailment as if the train has hit something but there was no other train coming from different direction on the same track. It seems that the driver saw something at the last moment and applied the emergency breaks,” said an eye-witness, living nearby.
Interestingly, the Junior Engineer who was supervising the repair work at the track and gangman are missing since the derailment took place at 5.46 pm on Saturday. Laborers who were working told locals that the track was not fully repaired and was unfit for trains to be allowed to run.
The state government has ruled out possibility of any terror angle in the derailment but has asked the UP Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) to carry on its investigation for ruling out any sabotage at local level. In Rampur derailment probe, the ATS had found that track was uprooted and pandoral clippers were found on track.
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 "Muzaffarnagar: A mangled coach of the Puri-Haridwar Utkal Express train being hauled off the tracks by a crane, at the accident")
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