A passenger train runs over crowd that were witnessing a Dussehra celebrations in the Golden city of Amritsar. The incident occurred in the evening killing about 60 and injuring over 100 people.
Spectators were standing on the tracks and watching the burning effigy of demon Ravana (this event brings closure to a 10 days festival of Dussehra). Meanwhile a passenger train just runs over these standing crowds. Witnesses claimed that this train did not blow a horn and it was moving at very high speed.
The Union Ministry of railways have washed of their hands blaming event organisers for no communication and people for standing on the tracks.
Horrific #AmritsarTrainAccident – Over 50 dead, 100s injured in India as speeding train plows into a huge crowd sitting on the railway track watching the culmination of the Dusshera festival. pic.twitter.com/k0mkaDbxKz
— Tarek Fatah (@TarekFatah) October 19, 2018
The Municipal administration has said no permission was given, the police officials in-charge say a clearance was issued. The state government has ordered a magisterial enquiry to identify lapses.
If that is not confusing enough there has been a blame game going on between the Congress and the BJP. The event organisers were close aids of a Congress cabinet minister Sidhu from the state government and they made Sidhu’s wife the chief guest.
Whose mistake is it?
> Event Organisers –
A viral camera footage shows that the event organiser were aware of the rail track and the crowds there. However they had not barricaded the tracks nor did they warn people. The organiser aid of the minister is on the run after the incident.
> Local Administration –
As per municipal authority no permission was given, if no permission was given why didn’t they try to stop the event. The police however had cleared the event but why were they not present managing crowds.
>Railways-
The driver of the train has said that he received a green signal so he sped the train, upon approaching closer to the event he applied emergency brakes (almost after crossing over people). He continued driving up to the next station and surrendered to the railway police.
Also as per witness a train passed by earlier before this train but very slowly and it seemed the railways were aware of the event. As the event was organised on railway land why didn’t the railways take action. The man manning the gates for vehicular traffic 800m away from the tragedy site was aware of the event so why didn’t he warn the driver?
>People-
The people were so engrossed in the celebratory events that they never heard the train honk. Also they were busy capturing these moments with technology (phones). People were entirely careless.
A smart person would know that you should not stand on tracks.