Hummingbird News Desk
KHARAGPUR, 3 APRIL: Three railway employees were killed and another was critically injured when the Sekendrabad bound Falaknuma Express mowed them down near Dua station under Kharagpur railway division in West Midnapore district on Saturday morning.
The deceased were identified as gangmen Bapi Nayak, 40, Nipen Pal, 40, and Manik Mandal, 40. Nayak and Pal were residents of Kharagpur and Mandal was from Debra. Their colleague Kisan Besra, from Kolaghat, survived with injuries after leaping off the tracks.
The incident took place at around 10 am when the four men were working on the railway tracks between Dua and Balichawk station of the South-Eastern Railway.
According to sources, around five railway men were carrying out greasing work on the middle track this morning. However, one of them had gone away for drinking water when the incident took place. Three gangmen were run over by the speeding train while another jumped on the other side of the track and made a narrow escape receiving injuries on his leg.
Sources said since it was a greasing work which did not require any traffic block or other special measures to be taken. Usually, the gangmen leave the tracks on getting the sound of the approaching train.
“However, in today’s incident, the gangment might not have heard the whistle given by the driver leading to the unfortunate mishap,” said Sanjay Ghosh, the CPRO of the zonal railway.
GRP sources said a departmental investigation had been initiated. The express train of the South Eastern Railways headed for Kharagpur was speeding at over 100km per hour.
“The train stopped immediately after and our personnel responded to the incident,” said a source in the railways.
Divisional railway manager (south eastern), Manoranjan Pradhan, said: “An inquiry team has been formed and an investigation started. The gangmen were carrying out routine maintenance.”
