AMRITSAR TRAIN TRAGEDY

Last Friday evening, a train tore through a Dussehra celebration, which was in progress next to a rail track, at Amritsar’s Dhobi Ghat, killing at least 61 people and injuring many others. The celebration has been taking place at the same location for four decades; it’s sheer luck that such a mishap did not happen earlier. The driver in his statement said he applied the “emergency brakes” as he saw the crowd on the tracks but “still some people were caught in the path of the train”. Several arms of the state are responsible for this disaster. First, the Indian Railways. The rail tracks are its property. As an oficial told the newspaper Mint, if anyone steps on to the tracks, it amounts to trespassing. “It’s on humanitarian grounds that Indian Railways don’t penalise them [those who come on tracks]”, the oficer said. By not penalising them, as the Amritsar accident showed, the Railways has not been doing anyone any favour. In fact, it has only encouraged such unacceptable behaviour. Second, the local police. Why on earth did they give permission to hold a function so close to the tracks when they don’t have enough manpower and adequate training to ensure people don’t get in the way of moving trains? Hindustan Times