Bahanaga Train Accident In Odisha: Station Master & Traffic Inspector Dismissed From Service, Says Reports

Bhubaneswar: The Indian Railways has reportedly dismissed the then station master and traffic inspector posted at Bahanaga Bazaar station in Odisha’s Balasore district during the triple train accident in 2023, from service.

Bahanaga station master S B Mohanty and the traffic inspector were among seven Railway employees who were earlier suspended by the South-Eastern Railway (SER) in connection with the train accident that left 294 people dead and over 1,200 injured on June 2 last year. Of them, the station master and the traffic inspector have been dismissed from service, according to reports.

Of the suspended employees, three were arrested by the CBI after it took over investigation into one of the worst train tragedies in the country. They are senior signalling section engineers Arun Kumar Mohanta and Mohammad Amir Khan and technician Pappu Kumar. The other four suspended employees are a signal technician, a traffic inspector and an assistant divisional signal and telecommunication engineer for alleged negligence, which led to the accident which otherwise could have been averted.

The accident took place when two superfast trains – Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express and Bengaluru-Howrah Express – and a goods train were involved in a rare collision on the night of June 2.

After several theories emerged over the cause of the accident, the CBI had taken over the investigation from Government Railway Police (GRP) on recommendation of the Railway Board.

The report of the commissioner railway safety had attributed the accident to  “lapses” at various levels in the Signal and Telecommunication department. It could have been averted had the station master reported “repeated unusual behaviour” of signals at the crossover point through which the south-bound Coromandel Express wrongly entered a loopline and crashed into a stationary goods train, the report added.