Balasore triple train tragedy: Signal staff union welcomes bail for 3 accused

The Indian Railway S&T Maintainers' Union welcomed the Orissa High Court's decision on Tuesday, 29 October, to grant bail to the three accused in the June 2023 Balasore triple train accident, which killed about 300 passengers.

The high court granted conditional bail to the three men, arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for their alleged involvement in the triple train tragedy that took place at Balasore's Bahanaga Bazar, which that had also left more than 1,200 injured.

Alok Chandra Prakash, general secretary of the Indian Railway S&T Maintainers' Union, said, "We came to know that the high court has granted bail to all the three accused. The union welcomes the decision."

Prakash also pleaded for their release before Diwali.

However, Kedar Nath Tripathy, a lawyer who appeared for one of the accused, expressed reservation on their early release due to legal formalities.

"The court pronounced the order for the grant of bail on Tuesday. Now the certified copies of the orders have to be submitted to the CBI court to get the release orders. I think it will take time and it might go beyond Diwali," Tripathy told PTI.

The CBI arrested Mohammad Amir Khan, Arun Kumar Mahanta and Pappu Yadav of the signal and telecommunications (S&T) department on 7 July 2023, for allegedly causing the death of passengers and destroying evidence.

While Mahanta and Yadav were posted as senior section engineer (in-charge) and technician, respectively, in Balasore, Khan worked as senior section engineer at Solo near Balasore.

A single-judge bench of Justice Aditya Kumar Mohapatra ordered their release on bail. They are required to furnish a bail bond of Rs 50,000 each, along with two local solvent sureties of the same amount.

The court also imposed six additional conditions, stating that the rail authorities would not post or assign them to their headquarters in the same division where the accident occurred.

Prakash, while expressing hope for their early release, said, "I plead to the high court and the CBI court to complete the legal formalities as soon as possible so that the three accused can be released on bail before Diwali so that they can celebrate with their respective families."

"They have been in jail for more than a year. The Commission of Railway Safety in its report said the accident had occurred due to human error," he added.

A collision involving the Shalimar–Chennai Coromandel Express, Bengaluru–Howrah Superfast Express and a stationary goods train near the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore killed 293 people on 2 June 2023.

The CBI said Mahanta was reportedly part of the initial probe carried out by the national transporter, in which he was understood to have denied any failure in the signalling department.

A high-level railway inquiry had found 'wrong signalling' to be the main reason for the accident and flagged 'lapses at multiple levels' in the S&T department, but indicated the tragedy could have been averted if past red flags were reported.

The independent inquiry report submitted by the Commission of Railway Safety to the Railway Board said notwithstanding the lapses in signalling work, remedial actions could have been undertaken by S&T staff if 'repeated unusual behaviour' of switches connecting two parallel tracks were reported to them by the Bahanaga Bazar station manager.

The report also suggested that non-supply of station-specific approved circuit diagrams for workers to replace the electric lifting barrier at level crossing gate 94 at the Bahanaga Bazar station was a 'wrong step that led to wrong wiring'.

It said a team of field supervisors modified the wiring diagram and failed to replicate it.

The report also said there was a similar incident on 16 May 2022, at Bankranayabaz station in the Kharagpur division of the South Eastern Railway, on account of wrong wiring and cable fault.

'Had corrective measures been taken after this incident to address the issue of wrong wiring, the accident at BNBR (Bahanaga Bazar railway station) would not have taken place,' it added.