18 charred to death in burning Punjab Mail

18 charred to death in burning Punjab Mail
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NASHIK/MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 19: Altogether 18 passengers were charred to death, most of them in their sleep, and 15 injured when six coaches of the speeding 2137 Down Mumbai-Firozpur Punjab Mail were engulfed in a fire in the Bhusawal-Khandwa division of Central Railway, 456 km from Mumbai.

The fire which engulfed the three-tier S-8 second class compartment at around 3.30 am on Saturday morning, spread to the adjacent S-9 coach before the burning train slewed to a halt between Duskheda and Savda stations in the early morning. Each second class coach has a seating capacity of 74 passengers.

``The fire moved like a sea wave and there was a strong smell of chemical, like the smell of burning leather,'' said D S Aswal, an instructor with a maritime academy in Noida. The train had left the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai, at 7.10 pm on Friday.

Eyewitnesses say, the fire engulfed six coaches of the 18-coach train in just seven minutes. A fact railway officials have termed as highly unusual. The fire was first spotted by a railway signalman near Redgaon. He immediately waved a red signal even as the passenger pulled the chain. Panicky passengers then leapt off the coaches of the burning train, some of them scrambling over the dead.

According to Anees Khan, the fire started from berth one and immediately engulfed the whole of S-8, giving passengers little chance to escape. Mohammed Quereshi, who was going to Agra from Mumbai, said passengers travelling in the other bogies tried their best to save those inside it but added that after the fire started, the train did not stop for five to seven minutes despite the alarm chain being pulled.

Mohammad Afzal, another passenger said he was traumatised by the sight of an elderly Sikh couple being charred to death. He said most of the victims lost their lives because they fell unconscious after inhaling the smoke.

The fire also burnt four other coaches from S-4 to S-7 before it was extinguished after a five-hour battle by about 8.30 am. The six affected bogies were detached at Savda and the train left for its onward journey at 11.20 am, after an equal number of coaches were added to the train.

According to Gurjit Kaur, who was travelling in the same coach, the passage between the coach S-8 and S-9 was closed when the fire broke out. This was open till 2.30 pm, she said. Soon after the fire began she rushed to the passage, as she had used the passage earlier, but found the door closed. By the time the train came to a halt, six to seven minutes had elapsed. The engine driver stopped the train after hearing the cries of passengers.

The bodies of seven men, six children and three women were charred beyond recognition while two bodies were reduced to a charred heap of bones, said railway officials. All casualties are believed to be in the S-8 coach which was completely gutted. The bodies have been shifted to the Bhusawal Railway hospital where the injured, including three women, have been hospitalised.Chief Medical Superintendent of Bhusawal Division, K G Singh, told newspersons that the bodies were being kept for the relatives to identify and claim them.

One passenger Gajendra Pandey who sustained serious head injuries while leaping off the train was struggling for life while the condition of others was said to be stable, he added. These passengers sustained minor injuries mainly caused by smoke inhalation. A group of 55 people, most of them cadets, were in the coach. Two of them are still missing.

According to Central Railway's Chief Public Relations Officer Mukul Marwah, a statutory inquiry by a high-level committee headed by Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) S C Gupta, will begin into the incident at the Division Railway Manager (DRM) office, Bhusawal from tomorrow.

``The investigation into the causes of the fire will strictly be left to the CRS,'' Marwah said. An official release in New Delhi said though the cause of the fire was not immediately known, the Railway Ministry did not rule out the possibility of sabotage or mischief. But railway officials in Mumbai said this couldn't be so as there were no explosions.

According to eyewitnesses, some passengers who were consumimg alcohol created a ruckus in the coach and in the process, a cigarette butt could have ignited the fire.

A variety of theories are doing the rounds about the possible causes of the fire. An electric short circuit has been immediately ruled out as the coaches were not air-conditioned. A theory that the fire originated in the train's pantry car has been denied by railway officials.

``Marriage parties have a tendency to light small portable stoves in trains, the fire could have started from here,'' said a senior railway official. The possibility of carelessness on the part of some cigarette-smoking passenger was not ruled out.

Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee expressed deep shock and grief over the incident and conveyed her condolences to the bereaved families.

The Railways have also made arrangements for free passes for Bhusawal to the relatives of passengers on the train. Central Railway General Manager K B Sankaran along with a team of railway officials left for the accident site by an early morning train.

Railway enquiry counters have been opened at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus at Mumbai (phone 2621540), at Dadar (4110092), Kalyan (911323447). The telephone number of Bhusawal railway station is 02582-23004 and that of the Central Railway Hospital at Bhusawal is 02582-23581.

Meanwhile, anxiety is writ large on the face of 78-year-old Phulchand Singh, a resident of Mumbai, as he hesitantly inquires for the nth time about the arrival of list of casualties.

Phulchand, who paces up and down restlessly, despite his advanced years, is one among the numerous relatives gathered at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, to inquire about the exact fate of their kith and kin.

``My daughter-in-law and my grand daughter are aboard the train. They had left for Agra for the wedding of a relative,'' he says, even as he runs his wrinkled fingers through the list of information, provided by the railways.Gulchand Agarwal, whose wife and daughter is on the train, slouches into a rickety chair, placed beside the information officer, with a blank expression on his face even as the police personnel stationed to provide information move about briskly performing their job. Gulchand, who first heard the news after his relative called up in the afternoon, has been glued to the information centre, hoping for some news to trickle in.

However, his brother's assurance that his wife and daughter could well be safe as they were travelling in S-7 and not S-8, which witnessed maximum casualties does little to ease the furrows on his forehead.

List of injured
Gajendra Pandey (M-19) UP, serious head injuries
Mitilesh Madan Mohan (F-20), Mumbai
Mona Duneja (F-26), Mumbai
Prakash Duneja, Mumbai (M-20)
Rakesh Garg, UP (M-40)
Varundeep Singh, UP, (M-18)
Anjeet Banerjee, UP, (M-19)
Vinod Tok, Delhi, (M-38)
DK Arora, UP, (M-43)
SM Khan, Mumbai (M-31)
Adinathan, Delhi, (M-18)
Sagar Paranjpe, Delhi, (M-18)
Nimit Jain, Meerut, (M-18)