Were pilots drugged?

The mystery of Monday’s train collision at the Sainthia railway station West Bengal has deepened. With the railways having floated the theory that the loco pilots of the Uttar Banga Express which rammed into the Vananchal Express could’ve been drugged, the case is becoming curiouser and curiouser.
Amidst various kinds of speculation on what led to one train colliding with another despite the numerous safety measures that the railways has in place to prevent such mishaps, the latest theory doing the rounds is whether the loco pilot and assistant loco pilot were drugged.
While this will be known only after the inquiry into the mishap is completed, a railway union has jumped in to demand a CBI probe into the collision.
The All India Railwaymen’s Federation (AIRF) demanded on Wednesday that there be a CBI investigation to this accident. Interestingly, railway minister Mamata Banerjee while addressing a party rally in Kolkata too reiterated her “sabotage” theory.
While the actual cause of the accident may only be known after the statutory inquiry in completed, what is mystifying and intriguing the railways is what happened in a short stretch of 7.5 kilometres.
It is the distance between Gadadharpur railway station, the last station where the Uttar Banga Express had halted before it sped to the next station at Sainthia and collided with the Vananchal Express.
Shiva Gopal Sharma, general secretary of the AIRF, handed a memorandum on behalf of the union to Railway Board chairman Vivek Sahai on Wednesday seeking a CBI probe. For according to him, “Why would any driver go on a suicide mission like this when just a few minutes ago, he was alert?”
Mr Sharma did admit that very often loco pilots do duty far beyond the prescribed number of hours.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/23477" 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: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</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-3ede8d701bc037503da85de0bf6fd546" value="form-3ede8d701bc037503da85de0bf6fd546" /> <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="86328280" /> <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>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.