Bahanaga train tragedy: CBI begins to grill 3 arrested railway officials

Bhubaneswar: A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team on Saturday started interrogation of three railway officials who were arrested in connection with Bahanaga Bazar triple train tragedy.

The CBI on Friday evening arrested Senior Section Engineer (signal) Arun Kumar Mohanta, Section Engineer (signal) Mohammad Amir Khan and technician Pappu Kumar under sections 304 and 201 of IPC and Section 153 of Railways Act, 1989. After the arrests, the Central agency brought all of them to Bhubaneswar and produced them before a CBI court here after their health check-up. The CBI sources said it had sought seven-day remand, but the court allowed five-day remand for further investigation. Now, the arrested officials are being interrogated by a special team of the CBI at Chandaka police station on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, sources said.

The CBI had registered the case on June 6 following a request of the Railway Ministry, consent of Odisha government and further orders from Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) relating to the tragedy.

Sources said the investigation revealed that they had knowledge about the ‘unusual behaviour’ of the switching mechanism in the track changing system and the accident could have been averted if the error was quickly communicated to the Station Manager of Bahanaga station. The charge of destruction of evidence has been slapped because the accused allegedly tried to cover their tracks after the accident. “The charge of culpable homicide, and not murder, has been invoked because of absence of motive or intention,” officials said.

Earlier, the Commission of Railway Safety’s investigation had attributed the triple train crash to human error in the signalling department, dismissing the likelihood of a sabotage or a technical glitch or a machine fault. The wires inside the level-crossing location box had been wrongly labelled and this stayed undetected for years, leading to a mix-up during maintenance work, which resulted in Coromandel Express being shown the wrong signal as it subsequently crashed into Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express and a goods train. The tragedy could have been averted if past warnings had not been ignored, it added.At least 293 people died and over 1,000 others were injured in the horrific accident near Bahanaga Bazar railway station on June 2.