At least 60 killed as train runs over festive crowd
People watching Ravana effigy burning didn’t see train; toll may rise
AMRITSAR: Tragedy struck at a Dussehra celebration in Amritsar on Friday when a speeding train ran over a festive crowd that spilled on to the tracks while watching the customary burning of a giant Ravana effigy. According to a senior government official, at least 60 people were killed and 74 injured, at the time of going to press at midnight.
Hundreds of people were gathered at an open ground near the manned crossing at Joda Phatak, barely 70 metres from the Amritsar-jalandhar double railway track where the celebrations were happening at around 7.15pm. Navjot Kaur Sidhu, the wife of Congress minister and Amritsar East legislator Navjot Singh Sidhu, was the chief guest at the event.
The crossing, 3km from Amritsar railway station, was closed for vehicular traffic, but people were spread out from the ground to the areas surrounding the tracks on both sides; many of them standing on the tracks.
The track was not cordoned off by the police or the local adminis-
AMRITSAR tration, eyewitnesses alleged. It was not immediately clear if the administration had given permission to hold the festivities so close to a busy railway track.
As the effigy started burning, and firecrackers inside it started going off, many pulled out their phones to capture a video of the scene. The noise and the crowd seemed to have masked the sound of the train approaching Amritsar from Jalandhar. As the train thundered across the track, crushing several revellers, the force was such that bodies were flung in all directions.
CONTINUED ON P 8 ››WHEN FESTIVITIES TURNED
INTO MOURNING, P8