Train kills 37 pilgrims in eastern India
INDRAJIT SINGH, AP
8 hours ago
8 hours ago
PATNA,
India (AP) — A train ran over a group of Hindu pilgrims at a crowded
station in eastern India early Monday, killing at least 37 people. A mob
infuriated by the deaths beat the
driver severely and set fire to coaches, officials said.
Several
hours after the accident, flames and dark smoke could be seen billowing
out of the train coaches, as protesters blocked firefighters from the
station in Dhamara Ghat, a small
town in Bihar state, officials said.
Dinesh
Chandra Yadav, a local member of parliament, said the pilgrims were
crossing the tracks in the packed, chaotic station when they were struck
by the Rajya Rani Express train. Several
other people were injured.
S.K. Bhardwaj, a police officer in Bihar, said 37 people were killed.
Railway
official Arunendra Kumar said the train was not supposed to halt at
Dhamara Ghat and had been given clearance to pass through the station.
However, some pilgrims waited on the
tracks thinking they could stop the train, he said.
The
train stopped a few hundred meters (yards) beyond the spot where it hit
the pilgrims. Angry mobs then pulled out the train driver and beat him.
Yadav said the driver died, but Kumar
said the driver was in hospital in critical condition.
The
mob then got all the passengers out of the train and set some coaches
on fire. Groups of young men also smashed the windows of two other
trains that were in the station.
A
crowd of around 5,000 people gathered near Dhamara Ghat station and
were chasing away the district officials who tried to remove the bodies
from the tracks. The crowds blocked the railway
tracks and the few policemen posted at the station had fled, state
officials said.
Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh appealed for calm in the area so that relief
and rescue operations could be carried out, a statement from his office
said.
Junior
railway minister Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said the mob set fire to at
least two coaches of the train, and protesters were preventing
firefighters from reaching the accident site.
Police
said the state government was sending additional forces to the area,
but their movement was hampered because railway authorities had shut
down train traffic on tracks leading to
Dhamara Ghat, police officer Bhardwaj said.
Kumar
Ashutosh, a passenger on the train, said that within a few seconds of
hitting people on the track, the driver slammed the emergency brakes and
the train ground to a halt.
"Soon,
groups of people began running toward the engine. They asked us to get
down from the train. Some of them pulled out the driver and his
assistant and began beating them," said Ashutosh,
who walked nine kilometers (six miles) from the accident site to the
nearby Saharsa station.
District
magistrate Syed Pervez Alam said the dismembered bodies of passengers
who had been killed were lying on the track. The angry mob has chased
away policemen and officials who tried
to reach the station.
"I
had woken up and was sitting near the window, when all this happened.
There were crowds of people on the platform and some on the track. It
all happened so fast," Ashutosh said.
He
said that although the train had been given clearance to pass through
Dhamara Ghat without stopping, the driver was partly to blame.
"The
driver did not slow down when the train approached the station. He
maintained the high speed at which the train was moving, so it was
difficult for him to stop when he realized that
there were people on the track," said Ashutosh, who was traveling in
the first coach next to the engine.
Railway
officials said a rescue train on its way to Dhamara Ghat had to be
halted at Saharsa because the tracks were blocked. Dhamara Ghat is about
280 kilometers (175 miles) north of
Patna, the state capital.
Monday
was the last day of monthlong prayer ceremonies at the Katyayani temple
near Dhamara Ghat, a popular Hindu pilgrimage site. The pilgrims were
returning from offering morning prayers.
More than 18.5 million passengers travel every day on India's vast railway network of about 10,000 passenger trains.
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