Bhubaneswar: Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw took a dig at the Opposition while speaking on the probe into the train accident in Odisha’s Balasore in June 2023, which claimed 296 lives and left 1,200 injured.
Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express, Bengaluru-Howrah Super Fast Express and a goods train were involved in the pile-up in one of India’s worst train accidents.
“The tragic accident was investigated by technical teams as well as the Commission of railway Safety and later by the CBI. All three reports have already been submitted, Based on the probe reports, a charge sheet was filed against the persons concerned. I would not like to take the names, my friends will say it’s a communal angle,” he told the Lok Sabha.
On the evening of June 2, 2023, the Coromandel Express crashed into a stationary freight train at Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore, some of its derailed coaches then colliding with Yeshwantpur-Howrah Express.
The Railway Minister asserted that the matter has been investigated threadbare and all actions have been taken with regards to the accident. “The loco pilots were not blamed even once for the crash,” he said while rubbishing the statement of a member of the House.
Vaishnaw further stated that India has witnessed a significant transformation in railway safety over the past decade. “The number of consequential railway accidents has declined by nearly 90%—from 135 in 2014–15 to just 11 this year,” he said, highlighting the impact of sustained reforms and focused safety measures.
What we know of the probe so far
Preliminary investigations had suggested that a signalling error could have led to the collision. The initial joint inspection report by Kharagpur railway division officials later revealed that the track joints were incorrectly positioned, and the signal panel in the station master’s room failed to synchronise with them at Bahanaga Bazar station.
It was alleged that the digital circuit for the interlocking signal was manually bypassed while repairing a breakdown. The restored signal did not match the intended track position, leading to the Coromandel Express entering a loop line and crashing into a stationary freight train carrying iron-ore.
The CBI too zeroed in on “human interference in signalling” as the reason for the accident and arrested Senior Section Engineer (signal) Arun Kumar Mahanta, Section Engineer Mohammed Amir Khan and Technician Pappu Kumar. They were charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and destruction of evidence as investigation revealed that they had the knowledge about the ‘unusual behaviour’ of the switching mechanism in the track changing system and the accident could have been averted if the error was quickly communicated to the station manager of Bahanaga.
