"There was a huge fire and I saw smoke coming out," said Usman Ali, from Lahore, who was travelling in the ill-fated Samjhauta Express on Sunday night.
DEEWANA/PANIPAT: "There was a huge fire and I saw smoke coming out," said Usman Ali, from Lahore, who was travelling in the ill-fated Samjhauta Express on Sunday night. "I rushed out and saw the doors of a compartment closed from inside which made it impossible for those trapped within the compartment to escape the flames," he said.
Kamaruddin, 60, from Multan in Pakistan, who is among the few survivors, said: "I was sitting at the end of one of the two coaches that caught fire when I heard a deafening sound a few feet away from me. The whole place was filled with smoke and I could hear a lot of people screaming for help, but I could not move." He was rescued, unconscious, from Deewana to the Bhimsen Sachar civil hospital in Panipat.
The Bhimsen Sachar civil hospital, about 12 kms from Deewana, where the blasts took place, was a picture of gloom as dead bodies started piling up for post mortem. Anxious relatives came looking for their near ones, praying to find them alive.
The union government has announced a compensation of Rs ten lakh each for the next of kin of those killed in the blasts. Union Railways Minister Lalu Prasad visited the civil hospital, where 13 injured in the blasts were initially brought for treatment. While a Pakistani national Qamruddin (60), a resident of Multan, is being treated here for minor burn injuries, the remaining 12 who suffered around 40 per cent burns have been taken to Delhi. Prasad also announced that the Railways would give jobs to one family member of each Indian killed in the blasts. A relief of Rs 50,000 will be given to those injured.
A state-wide alert has been sounded in Punjab and at all railway stations even as a high-level team led by IG RP Singh rushed to the spot of the explosion. Later in the day, a four-member team of the Pakistan embassy also visited the site of explosion.
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