At least 37 people, mostly pilgrims, were run over by the Saharsa-Patna Rajya Rani Express on Monday and 50 others injured while crossing a railway track at Dhamara Ghat Halt, nearly 300 km from here, on the Saharsa-Mansi section.
The devotees, who had alighted from the Samastipur-Saharsa passenger train at 8:50 am, were heading towards the Katyani temple to offer obeisance to Lord Shiva.
Being the last Monday of the month of Shravan, there was a mad rush of devotees. In absence of a road to the temple, the people were walking on the tracks, which is surrounded from both sides by the Bagmati and Kosi rivers.
A passenger train, which had just arrived from Khagaria, was stationed on track number one, while the train from Saharsa was on track number three. Meanwhile, the Rajya Rani Express was given passage on “through line,” track number two. Around 1,000 people were walking on the track at that juncture.
Eyewitnesses said the train was running at 80 km/hour. Loco pilots Rajaram Paswan and Sushil Kumar blew horns several times to alert the pilgrims. However, the sound was drowned in the music played by a band accompanying a family. Before others could react, the speeding train had run over at least 24 men, nine women and four children. By the time emergency brakes were applied, a number of bodies laid strewn on the tracks.
An angry mob thrashed Paswan and Kumar mercilessly. They are battling for life at Sadar Hospital. The two trains were also set afire by the mob. As the situation turned ugly, railway staff at Dhamara Ghat fled. Railway employees who later arrived from Saharsa, Mansi and Khagaria were held hostage by the pilgrims,who demanded adequate compensation for the kin of the deceased.
“Special relief trains, which were rushed from Samastipur and Barauni, also remained stranded for several hours, some 6 km ahead of Dhamara, as the situation at the accident site turned from bad to worse,” said Amitabh Prabhakar, Chief Public Relations Officer of East Central Railway. It took the district magistrates and SPs of Khagaria and Saharsa six hours to reach the spot and pacify the irate mob.
Meanwhile, locals took the injured pilgrims to hospitals in Saharsa, Khagaria and Mansi in boats. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has confirmed 37 deaths and announced Rs 2 lakh as compensation to each of the families of the victims. Former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi has appealed to the people to maintain calm and help the administration in carrying out relief work.
“Such is the topography of Dhamara that one can’t reach there by road easily. So the government should deploy helicopters to rescue as many people as possible,” suggested Modi, who feared that toll could go up as many of the injured were critical.
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