CBI beagn questioning three arrested railway officials
On Saturday, a five-member Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team began questioning the three arrested Railway officials at the Chandaka police station on the outskirts of Odisha's capital.
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Bhubaneswar: On Saturday, a five-member Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team began questioning the three arrested Railway officials at the Chandaka police station on the outskirts of Odisha's capital.
Senior Section Engineer (signal) Arun Kumar Mahanta, Section Engineer Mohammed Amir Khan, and Technician Pappu Kumar were arrested and charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder and evidence destruction.
Following their arrest in the train tragedy that claimed over 290 lives last month, a special CBI court in Bhubaneswar granted the central agency a 5-day remand for interrogation on Friday. According to sources, they were then taken to the Chandaka police station for their own safety.
While the interrogation of the arrested officials began the day before, one more railway employee has been summoned for questioning in the case.
According to sources, the investigation revealed that they were aware of the 'abnormal behavior' of the switching mechanism in the track changing system and that the accident could have been avoided if the error had been quickly communicated to the station manager of Bahanga station. The accused were charged with evidence destruction after allegedly attempting to cover their tracks following the accident. "The charge of culpable homicide, rather than murder, has been invoked due to the lack of motive or intention," officials stated.
They have been charged under Indian Penal Code Sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender). These sections differ from those cited in the FIR, which deal with causing death due to negligence and grievous harm (337/338/204A).
Previously, the investigation by the Commission of Railway Safety had attributed the triple train crash to human error in the signaling department, dismissing the possibility of sabotage, a technical glitch, or a machine fault.
The wires inside the level-crossing location box had been incorrectly labeled, which went undetected for years, resulting in a mix-up during maintenance work, which resulted in Coromandel Express being shown the wrong signal and crashing into Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express and a goods train.
It went on to say that if previous warnings had not been ignored, tragedy could have been avoided.
A M Chowdhary, South-Eastern zone commissioner of railway safety, stated, "Lapses at multiple levels in the S&T department were responsible for this (Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express) accident." Some of these blunders included incorrect wire labeling.
