CBI arrests three officials in connection to the Balasore train tragedy
CBI added 2 sections of IPC relating to Culpable Homicide not amounting to Murder and destroying evidence.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested three officials in connection to the Balasore train tragedy for doing acts leading to the accident. The three railways officials arrested are; Arun Kumar Mahanta (senior section engineer), Mohammad Amir Khan (section engineer) and Pappu Kumar (technician).
The three officials arrested have been charged with two sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The sections are: 1) Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 2) Section 201 (destruction of evidence), CBI officials said.
The CBI arrested these three and added stringent sections of the IPC after month long investigation into the train tragedy. These sections were initially not included in the First Information Report (FIR) which was done by the Odisha Police. The CBI has however not released more details and has not described the exact role played by these three.
The CBI action comes days after a report by the Commissioner of Railways Safety (CSR) on the train tragedy in which the CBI had stated that there was negligence by the workers who did not follow adequate measures and safety procedures of inspections, especially after changes were made in the design due to safety concerns three years ago. The report had said that the fault lay not only with workers in the signalling department but also with those who did not communicate the changes to the design. The report had also dismissed the possibility of sabotage, technical glitch and machine fault.
The CRS noted that the June 2 tragedy could have potentially been avoided had the repeated glitches with the local signalling system been flagged, which could have led the signalling and track staff to trace the mistake that was made in 2018.
The accident took place near the Bahanaga Bazar station in the Balasore district of Odisha on 2nd of June in which 293 people were killed — 287 on the spot or brought dead to hospital while six succumbed to injuries in hospitals, more than 1000 people were also injured. The accident involved three trains: the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express, Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express and a stationary goods train.
