<p>Did 37 persons really die in the Dhamara Halt train tragedy on Monday, as is being claimed by the Bihar administration? Or was the death toll was only 28, as claimed by the railway minister?<br /><br /></p>.<p>If the railway version is correct, what happened to the nine other bodies? Were they dumped in the nearby rivers of Kosi or Bagmati, flowing on two sides of the track, as initially claimed by the locals? <br /><br />Or was it a goof-up by the Nitish regime in calculating the bodies? If it was so, why was no clarification issued by the Bihar government when the Minister of State for Railways Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary on Tuesday reiterated in Patna that only 28 persons were killed and added that “Nitish ji might have confused about the 28 killed and nine injured, and calculated both as 37 killed”?<br /><br />A Deccan Herald investigation on Tuesday found that Nitish’s calculation was not wrong. The only faux pas was that he was wrongly briefed by his top officials that in all 37 bodies had been lying at the incident site.<br /><br />Though no senior official was willing to go on record, a top IPS officer, after much persuasion, told Deccan Herald that an SP-rank officer, who actually could not visit the incident site due to ongoing violence and arson at Dhamara, got a feedback from a local journalist (from the spot of the incident) that he had “counted 37 dead bodies”. <br /><br />The SP briefed ADG (Law and Order) SK Bhardwaj, who in turn briefed the Chief Minister, who in turn announced that 37 persons had died. The actual counting, which took place later in the evening, found the toll to be 28.<br /><br />Confirming this, Bhardwaj told Deccan Herald on Tuesday night, “The actual death toll is 28. Why would anybody hide a body when a compensation of Rs 7 lakh (which includes Rs 5 lakh from Railways and Rs 2 lakh from the Bihar government) is to be paid to the family of each of those killed?” <br /><br />He admitted that the origin of goof-up was a local scribe, on whose version a senior IPS officer had relied. <br /><br />Meanwhile, Chowdhary said that had the Bihar government alerted the Railways that there was a possibility of such a large congregation of people on account of the last Monday of the Shrawan (when people assemble at the Katyani temple to offer obeisance to Lord Shiva), the Railways would have initiated some measures and the tragedy could have been averted. In the meantime, the BJP on Tuesday slammed the Bihar chief minister for not visiting the incident site.</p>
<p>Did 37 persons really die in the Dhamara Halt train tragedy on Monday, as is being claimed by the Bihar administration? Or was the death toll was only 28, as claimed by the railway minister?<br /><br /></p>.<p>If the railway version is correct, what happened to the nine other bodies? Were they dumped in the nearby rivers of Kosi or Bagmati, flowing on two sides of the track, as initially claimed by the locals? <br /><br />Or was it a goof-up by the Nitish regime in calculating the bodies? If it was so, why was no clarification issued by the Bihar government when the Minister of State for Railways Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary on Tuesday reiterated in Patna that only 28 persons were killed and added that “Nitish ji might have confused about the 28 killed and nine injured, and calculated both as 37 killed”?<br /><br />A Deccan Herald investigation on Tuesday found that Nitish’s calculation was not wrong. The only faux pas was that he was wrongly briefed by his top officials that in all 37 bodies had been lying at the incident site.<br /><br />Though no senior official was willing to go on record, a top IPS officer, after much persuasion, told Deccan Herald that an SP-rank officer, who actually could not visit the incident site due to ongoing violence and arson at Dhamara, got a feedback from a local journalist (from the spot of the incident) that he had “counted 37 dead bodies”. <br /><br />The SP briefed ADG (Law and Order) SK Bhardwaj, who in turn briefed the Chief Minister, who in turn announced that 37 persons had died. The actual counting, which took place later in the evening, found the toll to be 28.<br /><br />Confirming this, Bhardwaj told Deccan Herald on Tuesday night, “The actual death toll is 28. Why would anybody hide a body when a compensation of Rs 7 lakh (which includes Rs 5 lakh from Railways and Rs 2 lakh from the Bihar government) is to be paid to the family of each of those killed?” <br /><br />He admitted that the origin of goof-up was a local scribe, on whose version a senior IPS officer had relied. <br /><br />Meanwhile, Chowdhary said that had the Bihar government alerted the Railways that there was a possibility of such a large congregation of people on account of the last Monday of the Shrawan (when people assemble at the Katyani temple to offer obeisance to Lord Shiva), the Railways would have initiated some measures and the tragedy could have been averted. In the meantime, the BJP on Tuesday slammed the Bihar chief minister for not visiting the incident site.</p>
