CBI Arrests 3 Railway Employees For Odisha Train Accident
After the submission of the CRS report, on 7th July 2023, CBI arrested 3 railway employees for their negligence that caused the accident.
You all know about the triple train accident between Coromandel Express and two other trains in Odisha’s Balasore district on 2nd June 2023 in which 293 people lost their lives and over a thousand were injured.
After the incident, a six-member Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team went to the site of the accident for examination. They also checked the panel room of the station, which displayed the signalling system and later spoke to officials. They also collected from the railways documents and physical and digital logs. A parallel investigation was being done by the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS). The CRS report on the Balasore accident found the signalling system faulty and flagged "lapses at multiple levels". The CRS report blamed repair works hours before the accident. According to the CRS report, the three signalling staff were at the station on the day of the accident, carrying out some repair work. However, faulty labelling of wires by them caused a signalling error that led to the Coromandel Express entering a loop line before ramming into a stationary goods train.
After the submission of the CRS report, on 7th July 2023, CBI arrested 3 railway employees. Those arrested were identified as Senior Section Engineer In-Charge (Signalling) Arun Kumar Mahanta, Senior Section Engineer Amir Khan and Technician Pappu Kumar Yadav, all posted in Balasore district. They have been charged under IPC sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 201 for causing disappearance of evidence of offense, or giving false information to screen offenders. On that day, Mahanta was supervising the team carrying out the work while Khan was leading the team of technicians involved in the job. Technician Yadav was part of the team carrying out the actual job on ground, involving rewiring. After the accident, Mahanta asked the team to check any mistake in the wiring. Yadav, in the presence of Mahanta and Khan, discovered the wiring mistake. The team also told the CRS that even after the accident, they did not think their ongoing work had anything to do with the mishap and they continued to finish their work.
Although this is not the first time the CBI is probing the train accident, officials said that since many many years the CBI has not arrested any railway officials for such accidents in the past. Railways usually take disciplinary actions under Railway Act and Service Rules, which include dismissal from service as mistakes and even negligence committed by railway officials in the course of duty could result in accidents but since there is no mens rea (criminal intent), said a senior official.
