CBI arrests 3 railway employees in Balasore train accident case for ‘homicide’

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday arrested three railway employees in connection with the Balasore train tragedy that claimed the lives of more than 250 passengers.

All three employees have been arrested under section 304 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), imposed for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The accused arrested are Arun Kumar Mahanta (senior section engineer), Md Amir Khan (junior section engineer) and Papu Kumar (technician).

Arun Kumar Mahanta was also a probe panel member who wrote the first preliminary inspection report and later a dissent note on the inspection report.

The CBI has also charged the three accused with section 201 of the IPC for disappearing evidence of an offence.

The central probe agency had officially taken over the probe into Odisha’s Balasore train crash on June 6.

The crash on June 2 involving two passenger trains and a goods train killed 278 people and injured more than 1,100, while the movement of goods and passenger trains on the busy route was also disrupted.

The arrest came weeks after Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the “root cause” of the accident and the people behind the “criminal” act had been identified.

RAILWAYS HINT AT SABOTAGE
Railway officials also indicated that possible “sabotage” and tampering with the electronic interlocking system, which detects the presence of trains, could have led to the accident.

Also, a recent report by the Commissioner Railway Safety (CRS) pointed out human errors as the cause behind the devastating accident. The report also indicated that tragedy could have been averted if past red flags were reported, even as it flagged “lapses at multiple levels”.

The report attributed the incident to a rear-collision between the Coromondel Express and a goods train that resulted due to lapses in the “signalling-circuit-alteration” process conducted at the North Signal Goomty station.