Families protest over rail tragedy

amritsar — A WhatsApp photograph of a head flashed on Vijay Kumar’s phone screen at 3am on Saturday, confirming his worst fears — his 18-year-old son Manish was one of the revellers mowed down by a train while they were watching Ravan’s effigy burnt the evening before.

His younger son, Ashish, returned safely from the festivities, said Kumar, but the frantic search for Manish ended with that ‘ping’ on his phone. He has since been roaming from hospital to hospital looking for the remains of his elder son.

It was a night of unspeakable horrors, said the father, aware that his son was decapitated when the train hurtled through the tracks. A leg was found and one hand, but they are not Manish’s. “My son was wearing blue jeans. This one is not wearing blue jeans. I have lost my world,” an inconsolable Kumar said outside the Guru Nanak Hospital, attached to the Government Medical College.

As people milled around the hospital compound, some stunned into silence by the enormity of the tragedy that felled their loved one and others holding back tears, the injured were inside, grappling with their wounds and trying to piece together what had happened.

Among them was Sapna, who was on a WhatsApp call with her husband Satender to relay the ‘Ravan Dahan’ event live to him, when the accident took place.

The 30-year-old, who suffered head injuries, said she saw body parts scattered around the tracks and a severed head. “When the effigy was set afire, people started moving away from the stage and towards the tracks,” she said, recalling the minutes before tragedy struck.

As a train approached the area, people tried to clear the tracks and move towards another line, leading to a stampede-like situation. Moments later, another train came from the opposite direction at a high speed and ran over the crowds. She said they could not hear sound of the horn due to the sound of the bursting crackers. —