Around 2,000 Kolkata Metro commuters were suddenly left in a quandary, gasping for breath for over half-an-hour in total darkness after the first two coaches of a train got derailed in the underground tunnel during the rush hour on Wednesday morning. Two passengers — Satyabrata Dutta and Sumana Dey — were also injured in the incident. The derailment was the second of its kind in the history of the Metro railways in the city.
Hinting towards a sabotage by the CPI(M), railway minister Mamata Banerjee ordered a “specific probe to find out the culprits and take action against them.” “Such kind of incident is not at all expected, although it is a rare one. We are not like the derailed CPI(M) government. It will take some time to detect whether the derailment was ‘carried out’ or it ‘occurred’,” she said. The state government has also sought a report from the Metro railway authorities.
Metro services were largely disrupted throughout the day. The derailment took place at around 9.23 am due to a mechanical glitch apparently due to lack of maintenance. The Kavi Subhas-bound rake (8N/08/06) was approaching towards the Central Metro station following its departure from the Mahatma Gandhi station. “Nearly 2,000 commuters were on board,” said R.N. Mahapatra, chief public relations officer of the Kolkata Metro Railway.
When the train was nearly 40-feet away from the station, it came to a halt with a mammoth jerk. “The lights inside the coaches went off. There was a flash of fire,” recalled Mr Dutta who was on his way to his workplace at Jatin Das Park. He added, “The smoke engulfed us. The jerk was so heavy that I was thrown 15-feet away and fell on the floor of the compartment.”