At least 59 people lost their lives and many others injured in a bizarre train accident in Amritsar, Punjab. In the disastrous sequence of events at a Dussehra celebration at dusk, a train at full speed tore through revellers who had been pushed back about 100 feet from the periphery of a burning effigy of Ravan. The men, women and children moved back onto the railway tracks and, in the shadow of the flames and crackle of explosions, none saw or heard the whistle of the rapidly approaching train.
The tragedy took place at the Joda Fatak area of Amritsar, where a crowd of 4,000 people had gathered to watch the fireworks. As the effigy went up in flames, the organisers asked people to move back. The crowds spilled over to the tracks just as the Jalandhar-Amritsar DMU sped past. Eyewitnesses said the Amritsar-Howrah train had crossed the spot minutes earlier. Had the two trains crossed at the same time, casualties would have been much higher.
How a Dussehra celebration was allowed so close to railway tracks and why the Railways were unaware of the event are questions yet to be answered. Anger and despair soaked the accident spot as the effigies’ flames spluttered to a deathly end at the event in Amritsar (East), a constituency represented by Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, whose wife and former MLA from the area Navjot Kaur Sidhu was at the function but had left minutes before the tragedy.
No one ready to take responsibility
A day after the train accident, no one appears ready to take responsibility. Amritsar mayor Karamjit Singh Rintu said the organisers had not even applied for permission for the Ravan Dahan celebration, and this was confirmed by municipal commissioner Sonali Giri. The railways have pulled out the rule book and declared the people who killed as “trespassers.” Ashwani Lohani, chairman of the Railway Board, said people who were on the rail tracks were trespassing on railway property and there was no question of holding an investigation. Section 145 of the Railways Act states that tracks are highly dangerous areas; merely walking alongside them carries a sentence of up to six months.
