The Railway Board has recommended a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into Friday’s horrific train crash in Odisha’s Balasore which left 275 people dead and 1,175 people injured, Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said on Sunday.
“Keeping in mind all that happened, the information that the administration has, the Railways board has made a recommendation that the investigation be handed over to the CBI,” Vaishnav said.
The minister had earlier ruled out driver error and system malfunction, indicating a possible “sabotage” and tampering of the electronic interlocking system behind the accident. He said the “root cause” of the accident and the “criminals” responsible for it have been identified.
“It happened due to a change made in the electronic interlocking and point machine,” Vaishnav told reporters. The top railway officials in Delhi, while explaining how the point machine and the interlocking system function, also refused to rule out the possibility of outside intervention.
Jaya Verma Sinha, a Railway Board member, said that the interlocking system is “error proof” and “fail safe”. “It is called a fail safe system, so it means that even if it fails, all the signals will turn red and all train operations will stop. Now, as the minister said there was a problem with the signalling system. It could be that someone has done some digging without seeing the cables. Running of any machine is prone to failures,” he added.
“It could be a case of tampering or sabotage from within or from outside. We have not ruled anything out,” another senior official told the agency. The accident took place near the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore at 7 pm when the Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express hit behind a goods train and derailed. At least 10-12 of its coaches fell on the adjacent tracks on which Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express was travelling.
After a preliminary investigation, the officials have given a clean chit to the driver of the Coromandel Express, stating that he had the green signal to move forward and he was “not over-speeding”.
The preliminary report stated that the Coromandel Express had entered the loop line at the station on which an iron ore-laden goods train was parked. It also indicated that a tampering could have occurred stating that the signal was “given and taken off for the up main line for train number 12841 (Coromandel Express), the train entered the loop line, dashed the goods train and derailed. In the meantime, train number 12864 passed through the down main line and two of its coaches derailed and capsized.”
