Railway Board chairman does not rule out sabotage

Pointing out anomalies in the events leading up to the train collision at Sainthia in West Bengal's Birbhum district that claimed at least 67 lives, Railway Board Chairman Vivek Sahay on Monday did not rule out the possibility of sabotage and hinted at “wilful interference.”

Mr. Sahay described the circumstances of the accident as “out of normal” and emphasised that the “brakes were not touched.”

“According to prima facie reports, we know that the brakes were not applied. The emergency brake was also not applied. Both the loco pilot and assistant loco pilot were sitting in their chairs; no effort has been made to jump out of the train,” Mr. Sahay told journalists here after visiting the accident site with senior Board officials.

The accident must have occurred just after 2.01 a.m. when the Uttarbanga Express rammed the Vananchal Express from behind at a speed of 90 km per hour, he said.

At a distance of 1.8 km from the Sainthia station, there was a bridge on which there was a speed restriction of 30 km per hour.

Also, since Sainthia was a scheduled stop of the Uttarbanga Express, the train should have been approaching the station at a speed of 30 or 40 km per hour, Mr. Sahay said.

Secondly, the driver of the Uttarbanga Express and his assistant also ignored the home signal that had asked the train to stop. Even if the driver had ignored it, the assistant driver could have applied the emergency brakes, which he did not do, Mr. Sahay said.

“Why was the train travelling so fast? What went wrong,” asked Mr. Sahay, adding this would be “the focus of investigations.”

Mr. Sahay also ruled out the possibility that the brakes might have failed because the Uttarbanga Express had stopped at the previous station at Gadadhar minutes before the accident. It had arrived at Gadadhar at 1.54 a.m. and departed at 1.56 a.m., entering Sainthia at 2:01 a.m.

“The driver, M.C. Dey, was an ‘A' category driver — a category given to the best drivers for safety. His safety record had been exceptionally good,” Mr. Sahay said.

The guard had been traumatised after the accident and could not be interrogated so far, Mr. Sahay said.

On being asked about the frequency of train accidents with several incidents occurring in the past few months, Mr. Sahay claimed that in fact the average accident rate had declined, but several incidents on mail and express trains had occurred leading to higher causalities.

“Many of them have been found to have been caused by wilful interference. There have been five cases of accidents by wilful interference since January this year … Up to now, no Railway employee has been found to be involved,” he said.