Inquiry on into mishap

May 23, 2012 |

Hyderabad

Tags:

Hours after Hampi Express hit a stationary goods train in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantpur district, leaving over two dozen people dead, the ill-fated passenger train’s driver and his assistant are being suspected as the ones who are guilty of negligence.

Both have been injured in the accident and are recuperating at Penukonda Government Hospital. Sources said a police case has been registered against the duo. Railways spokesperson Anil Saxena on Tuesday indicated that as per preliminary information available, the driver of Hampi Express overshot signal and rammed the rear end of the goods train.

Meanwhile, railway minister Mukul Roy has ordered an inquiry into the matter and has directed South Western Railway’s commissioner of Railway Security Satish Kumar Mittal and his team to complete investigation by May 25. There, however, are some lingering questions that are being raised regarding the cause of the accident.

“If the driver of the train failed to notice the signal, how did the co-driver fail to notice it too? The signal has to be given by the station master; what was he doing when he saw the train miss the signal?” asked a senior official from the Railways. There are a slew of other safety protocols supposed to be in place, but it is yet to be ascertained if they were in place. “We will know the truth once the report is out,” he said.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/154082" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-bfbdf8e63db6a4f4a49c9ef91f708509" value="form-bfbdf8e63db6a4f4a49c9ef91f708509" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85676679" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>