It has also come to light that the sleeper coaches which caught fire were not packed. There were only seven passengers in S-3. Each coach has 72 berths. In all, the S-2, S-3, S-4 coaches had just 82 passengers whereas the capacity is 216
Mumbai : As expected, Railway authorities have an excuse for everything. Now, they are say that the burning Dehradun Express did not stop despite the chain being pulled as the chain had been deactivated.
The chain had been pulled by passengers in S-3 compartment at Goregaon station apparently because they noticed sparks from the edge of the compartment. The compartment was inspected but nothing was found wrong. However, the chain in S-3 compartment was not fixed.
It is not clear why the train did not stop when passengers in the adjoining compartments were pulling the chain. Eye-witnesses in S-5 said it took a good ten minutes after the chain was pulled before the train stopped.
It has also come to light that the sleeper coaches which caught fire were not packed. There were only seven passengers in S-3. Each coach has 72 berths. In all, the S-2, S-3, S-4 coaches had just 82 passengers whereas the capacity is 216.
Of the nine dead, four were charred to death while five died of suffocation. Two of the charred bodies were in S-2 and two in S-3. The five who died of suffocation were in S-4. The fact that the windows had been shut to keep out the cold led to smoke being trapped in the compartment.
There were six fire extinguishers in the train but they were not effective as the fire had spread by the time the driver and the guard collected them. The passengers also claimed that the emergency windows of the train were not functional making it difficult for them to escape from the train.
The samples collected from the train have been sent to Kalina Forensic Laboratory for testing. Following the forensic reports further course of action will be decided.
The railway authorities are yet to trace four passengers. They are Sakina Arsiwala (57), resident of Nul Bazar; Jamir Ahmed (60) from Jogeshwari (W); Hakimuddin F.R.(63) from Dhar (MP); Zebunh (53) from Dhar (MP).
