A public interest litigation (PIL) has been moved in the Supreme Court seeking a probe into the triple train accident in Odisha’s Balasore by an expert panel headed by a retired judge of the apex court. As per the latest official figures, the toll in the Balasore train tragedy has increased to 294, while more than 1,100 have been injured.
The PIL also sought direction to the government to come up with guidelines and directions for the implementation of the Automatic Train Protection (ATP) System called the ‘KAVACH’ Protection System in Indian Railways with immediate effect to ensure public safety.
‘Kavach’ controls the speed of the train by automatic application of breaks in case the loco pilot fails to do so.
“Immediately to set up an expert commission headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court consisting of technical members to analyse and review the current risk and safety parameters in the railway system and to suggest systematic safety modifications for strengthening Railway safety mechanism and submit its report in two months to this court,” the PIL filed by advocate Vishal Tiwari said.
The preliminary report on the tragedy said the three-way accident involved Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, the Coromandel Express and a goods train on three separate tracks at Bahanaga Bazar Station in Balasore district. As many as 17 coaches of these two passenger trains were derailed and severely damaged in the accident on Friday evening.
The crash involving Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express and Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express, which were carrying around 2,500 passengers, and a goods train occurred around 7 PM on Friday near the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore, about 250 km south of Kolkata and 170 km north of Bhubaneswar.
Twenty-one coaches were derailed and severely damaged in the accident, trapping hundreds of passengers.
The rescue operation was wrapped up Saturday afternoon and restoration work started. With traffic on the route disrupted, over 150 trains were cancelled, diverted or short-terminated.
(With inputs from ANI and PTI)
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