The Hindu : Derailment was due to sabotage: Dattatreya

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 07, 2003

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Derailment was due to sabotage: Dattatreya

By N. Rahul

HYDERABAD July 6. The derailment of the Pakala-Bellary passenger train is a clear case of sabotage, the Union Minister of State for Railways, Bandaru Dattatreya, has said. He said saboteurs had removed a sleeper and placed boulders on the track, and preliminary investigation had shown that a fishplate was missing from the track.

Talking to The Hindu, Mr. Dattatreya said he had despatched a high-level committee to Madanapalle to make a spot inquiry into the accident.

The team comprises the Chief Mechanical Engineer, the Chief Security Officer and the Principal Chief Engineer of the South Central Railway (SCR).

The SCR General Manager, T. Stanley Babu, has already reached the spot.

Mr. Dattatreya said the accident was the handiwork of anti-social elements. About 10 years ago they had resorted to similar vandalism, leading to the derailment of a goods train. Since then, a 77 km. stretch from Madanapalle was identified as problematic and regular patrolling introduced, besides all trains had been asked to reduce their speed to 40 km. This was the reason why an accident of larger magnitude had been averted as otherwise the train would have fallen into a nearby gorge.

The Railways had filed a first information report, since the offence had taken place on its property and the case was being transferred to the State Government.

"It is now up to the State Government to investigate.'' he said.

Mr. Dattatreya expressed his condolences to the family of the assistant driver of the train, P. Mani, who was killed in the accident. The 24 injured passengers were rushed to the nearby Government Hospital and their condition was reported "safe".

Meanwhile, an SCR press release said nine persons, including the train driver, Surendernath Gupta, were injured in the accident. The other injured were Subba Reddy, Pamala Naik, Nagaraju, A. Muneer Basha, Mahabub Jan, Jyothi, Pinakka and Mumtaz Begum.

The release said a steel sleeper was kept on the rails and several boulders that were on the track had led to the accident. The Commissioner of Railway Safety, South Central Circle, would investigate.

Following the accident, train numbers: 247/248 Guntakal-Pakala-Guntakal passenger, 288/287 Bellary-Pakala-Bellary passenger and 7597/7598 Guntakal-Pakala-Guntakal Venkatadri expresses were cancelled following the accident.

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